176 



SMALL ANIMALS AND IXSECTS. 



[Chap. IL 



for any otlier farm-stock. The fact tliat bees obtain a great deal of food 

 from fruit-trees slwuld ciicouraire farmers to cultivate botii togetlier. And 

 if lie plants along the roadside long rows of willows, maples, lindens, poj)- 

 lars, he will not only have the advantage of them for shade and ornament, 

 but his bees, if he has them — and if not, let him be enc^ragod to get thera — 

 will find a great Held up in the branches, that they can use as pasture. 



The strongest reason that can be given for keeping bees is this simple fact: 

 They afl'ord more clear profit than any other stock ever kept on the farm, 

 and. generally speaking, the more labor is bestowed upon them iu providing 

 good Lives aud pasture, the better they pay. 



SECTION XI.-BIUDS. 



Ctison and Religion in Prcservins BirdSi — ^Xc don't 

 know how much we have written, said, and sung 

 to induce farmers not to destroy the birds, nor 

 allow them to be destroyed, because we.look upon 

 them as part and ])arcel of the farm-stock, and of 

 more importance to the farmer than some animals he 

 keeps, at much more expense than his stock of birds. 

 •w\g3 We say his stock, because Ave consider the birds on the 

 ^^5^^ trees just as much the property of him who owns the 

 trees as the trees themselves ; and he who would steal 

 one would steal the other. A man who would come upon 

 my farm and shoot my birds, without my permission, is 

 not one of the noblest works of God. Xo man who takes 

 reason for a guide, who owns a farm in any of the old 

 States, can consent to have his birds destroj'cd. He certainly will not de- 

 stroy them himself, after ho has taken time to think upon the subject. It is 

 our object to induce him to think, and the best place to 9o so is to go out 

 among them in a bright spring morning, and hear their music. 



Go out among the trees in the orchard or through the grove, or look into 

 the hedge-rows or peep under the old bridge down the lane, or go to the 

 barn ; go anywhere, everywhere, where you will, and at this season — that is, 

 lovely Ifay season — you will find the birds — busy, merry, singing birds ; 

 hard at work they are, too, building their houses — cradles, rather — and all the 

 time keeping up a concert of sweet music. Various too are their tastes in 

 selecting their sites for their nesting-places, some hiding away from man, 

 some coming up to his very door, or, like the martin and swallow, under his 

 roof and protection. Robin-red-breast almost invariably comes into the 

 orchard, sometimes on the trees, sometimes on the fence, sometimes, where 

 kindly treated, under the shed by the barn or houSe. 



•C\j 



