248 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



In quality tlie imiDorted rice is decidedly inferior to that grown in 

 tliis country, and the price paid for it is correspondingly lower. The 

 duty, however, is enormous, nearly equaling the cost. If, therefore, 

 the bird plague can be abolished or reduced to comiiarative harmless- 

 ness, it is evident that great benefit will accrue both to tlie jircxlucer 

 and the consumer; for, tlie home demand being' greater than the home 

 supply, the planter will proht by increased production and lessened 

 ex^jense; while the consumer will gain by securing a uniformly good 

 quality of rice, of much higher nutritive value than the imported. 



Among the numerous letters from rice-growers which have been 

 received at the Department of Agriculture, asking for assistance in 

 the attempt to secure some practicable remedy for the destructive 

 ravages of birds, the following will serve to indicat'e tlie extent of 

 the losses sustained in South Carolina, Georgia, aiad Louisiana . 



Letter from Col. John Screven, of Savannah, Ga., President of the Georgia Rice- 

 growers' Association. 



In reply to your favor, requesting information concerning the depredations of the 

 Bobohnk or Rice-bnd in the rice fields of my neighborhood, I furnish such infor- 

 mation as I liave with pleasiu-e, hoping that it may assist in the discovery of some 

 effective and economical means of arresting the ravages of this chief bird pest in the 

 rice fields. 



The Rice-bud is strictly migratory. It api3ears on the Savannah River commonly 

 about the 10th or 15th of April, and remains, perhaps, until the 29th of May. Dur- 

 ing this incursion it is known as the " May-bnd." It appears again about the 15th 

 of August, when the early gi-ain is hardened and is not so invitmg to his appetite as 

 when unripe and in the milk. The planter, observing these dates, seeks therefrom 

 to seed the land and to have the young rice under what is known as the "stretch 

 flow" before the spring flocks aiTive, and to have the grain ripened before the au- 

 tumn flocks return. If his plantmg is not finished before the spring flocks come, it 

 ■will be delayed until late in May or early in June, when the birds have departed for 

 the season. He looks to the ripening and harvesting of such late crops when the 

 fall ravages of the Rice-bu-d have either ceased or are much diminished. 



These data sho^v how^ the destructiveness of the Rice-bird is in some measure 

 avoided, and in j^art by takmg advantage of the periodicity of its migi-ations; but 

 despite the precautions so taken its invasions are ruinous to fields on whicli its flocks 

 may settle, especially if the grain is in palatable condition and is on fields adjacent 

 to marshes convenient for ambush or retreat. Bird-mindei-s, armed with muskets 

 and shot-guns, endeavor by discharges of blank cartridges to keep the birds alarmed 

 and to drive them from the field. Small shot are also fired among them, and in- 

 credible numV)ers are killed; but all such efl'orts will not prevent great waste of 

 gTaiii, amounting to a loss of large portions of a field — sometimes, indeed, to its en- 

 tire loss. The voracity of the birds seems so intense that fear is secondary to it, and 

 they fly, when alarmed, from one portion of the field to another, very little out of 

 gunshot, and immediately settle down again to their banquet. 



_ As evidence of the numbers ^jresent of tliis bnd and of the numbers killed in the 

 rice-fields, a neighboring i)lanter informs me that in 1884 he permitted four pot- 

 hunters (contrary to the ordinary regime) to shoot in his fields, and in tiie course of 

 the fall season they slaughtered and accounted for eight thousand Rice-birdr.. On 

 every plantation large numbers are killed, and yet the visible supply of tJiese robliers 

 of the air does not seem in the least diminished. Every year the same numbers 

 seem to swarm, and with wonderful prescience of the date of the coming harvest. 



The Rice-bird comes only m seed-time and harvest to prey, so far as the rice fields 

 are concerned, on crops raised at more cost and peril than any other known in agri- 

 culture. 



The preventives now in use against its ravages have been already mentioned, but 

 they are palliative only, applied at great expense, and v.dthout commensurate results. 

 No vigilance on the part of the planter can do away with the wastefulness of pow- 

 der and shot in the hands of careless and dishonest bird-minders. They only too 

 often add the cost of wasted grain to the cost of tlieir ov,-n faithless an<l ill-directed 

 labor. In sliort, no effort yet tried, consistent with reasonable economy, ^^^ll drive 

 the Rice-birds from the fields or afford anj' well-founded promise of their rv.Mluction 

 to harmless numbers. 



