246 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



of Education desires to go a step farther and makes such, or similar 

 work, compulsory. 



In addition education should proceed through agricultural institutes 

 and clubs. The granges of the state, particularly, should give more 

 attention to this subject. From our own contact with our farmers, we 

 find them alive to the importance of this subject and ready to co-operate. 

 The remark has been made to us, "I would as soon see a person take a 

 chicken from my flock as a quail from, my 'pasture." If a state law be- 

 comes effective in prohibiting shooting of every kind, all the time, 

 many a farmer would give a sigh of relief since he would no longer be 

 accosted with requests to hunt over his land and his feathered helpers 

 would be interfered with no more, but would be permitted to perform 

 their good offices without molestation. 



This would effectually pave the way for a campaign of education 

 among agriculturists who are the natural custodians of the birds, re- 

 garding the bringing back of some of the old conditions favorable to 

 bird life, but which have disappeared in the onward march through 

 draining, cutting down, and leveling up. Naturally, the thrifty farmer 

 desires to see all his land so cleaned up and prepared, that there is no 

 suggestion of swamp, brush or weed patch. For himself alone, from a 

 certain standpoint, this may be all right, but from another angle, radically 

 wrong. In his endeavor to emulate his good wife in the cleanliness and 

 order prevailing in the home, he overlooks an important factor of out- 

 door economy. He has a host of helpers in the birds which he cannot 

 well do without, and he has not given the least thought to their pro- 

 tection and care. Thus, we see he has been delinquent, largely because 

 he was uninformed, hence the necessity for a campaign of education in 

 order that the birds may be provided with suitable nesting thickets, cer- 

 tain wild fruit trees for supplying their food, and special food, when, 

 through the severity of winter the creatures are cut off from their regu- 

 lar natural supplies. The campaign of education needs the support of 

 legislation which we should seek . when our representatives from the 

 various counties meet in this city for this specific work. A good start 

 would be made in the appointment of a state ornithologist. When little 

 states like Massachusetts and Connecticut have these, Iowa certainly 

 should. We have with us here the text of the bill establishing this office 

 in Massachusetts about six years ago, when our friend E. H. Forbush was 

 chosen for the post and has continued in the position. At a later date, 

 at the suggestion o>f Mr. Forbush, which it was the writer's pleasure 

 to assist in carrying out, another friend of ours, Herbert K. Job of West 

 Haven, Connecticut, was chosen as state ornithologist for Connecticut, 

 who has recently resigned to become consulting ornithologist of the 

 National Association of Audubon Societies. Both these names will 

 doubtless be familiar to many in this room. 



The ornithologist would naturally be state game warden. Under and 

 in association with him would be a warden for every county, while this 

 official should have affiliated with him a warden for every township, the 

 latter to be honorary and serve without pay, except in special cases, 

 when a rural minister of the gospel would doubtless feel it his duty to 

 act as township warden. 



