240 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



either drops to the ground or decays on the trees. These birds are worse than all 

 other apple pests combined. I can hardly get a smgle apple fit to eat ; they have 

 destroyed nearly if not quite tlu-ee-fourths of them. A neighbor across the way is 

 troubled in the same manner. 



An apple pecked as above described and kindly sent to the Depart- 

 ment by Mr. Webster is figured in the accompanying cut. 



Apple pecked by English Sparrows. 

 From orchard of F. M. "Webster, Lafayette, Indiana, October 7,1886ii 



The Sparrow an enemy to grape culture. 



The grape industry, which is one of rapidly increasing consequence 

 in this country, encounters in the English Sparrow an enemy second 

 only to the Phylloxera and certain fungus growths. Already in some 

 parts of the East it has become such a scourge that grape culture can 

 no longer be carried on with profit, it being necessary to inclose the 

 ripening clusters in bags to insure their protection. At the end of 

 the season of 18S6 bitter complaints of damage done the grape crop 

 by Sparrows had reached the Department from twenty-five States 

 and the ]3istrict of Columbia, as follows: Alabama, Arkansas, Cali- 

 fornia. Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, 

 Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mary] and, Massachusetts, Mich- 

 igan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Penn- 

 sylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and West 

 Virginia. 



In California, where tliis industry is of paramount importance, the 

 English Sparrow has taken firm root and is multiplying and spread- 



