Seo. 13.] WILD AN!) TAME ANIMALS <JF THE FARM. 251 



I never permit the common crow to bo destroyed, because he preserves 

 my coni-tiukls iVoia numerous enemies, keeps off hawks, destroys shigs, 

 siijiils, gnibs, and cats carrion. Nor tlie bhick snake, whose constant 

 eniiiloymeiit scorns to be the destruction of field-mice, and other enemies to 

 the orchard. Nor the cherry bird, because he is always on liand ready to 

 eat tlie first cherries that ripen prematurely, ■which invariably contain the 

 worm. Nor the king-bird, wren, or robin, all of which are employed from 

 dawn to dusk in relieving me from my enemies. 



275. An En^li!>li Opiuioii about iMoleSi— The Koyal Agricultural Society's 

 Transactions contains the following opinion about moles. The report adirms 

 that "in one year, and every year, 0U,UUO bushels of seed-wheat, worth 

 jCoOjOOO, are destroyed by wire-worms! This prevents 720,000 bushels from 

 being grown, worth £300,000. If our farmers and others, instead of killing 

 moles, partridges, and pheasants, \von\d protect them, 720,000 bushels more 

 wheat would go every year into the English market. But the creature designed 

 by a kind Providence to perform the chief part of this immense good is the 

 mole! Some years since I had two fields, one of which was full of wire- 

 worms, the other perhaps a third full. My crops failed on these fields for 

 the first two or three years, but afterward improved rapidly, for I bought all 

 the live moles I could find at three shillings a dozen, and then two shillings 

 a dozen, and turned them into these fields. I had eight quarters of harity 

 per acre and seven of wheat wlirrc the mohs were at work all summer, 

 making the ground like ahoney-comb. Next year, the wire-worms, being all 

 cleai'eil out, my innocent little workmen, who had ])erformed for me a service 

 beyond the powers of all the men in my jiarish, emigrated to my neighbor's 

 lands lo perform the same service, hut of coui'se they met death wherever 

 they moved, so that my little colony was wholly destroyed. Now i will 

 receive all the moles that the farmers will give me, and turn them into my 

 glebe." 



27C. An Amoriran Opinion about Moles.— An American writer imdcrtakes 

 to criticise wiiat is said above, and says: "This I know from every-day 

 ol)servation to bo very erroneous. I do not know thaf moles eat insects ; bo 

 that as it may, I have no doubt their living is i)rincipally seeds, and roots, and 

 other vegetables. In the winter time, when snow is deep and the ground 

 not frozen, I have known them to destroy whole nurseries of apple-trees, 

 and even young orchards that have commenced bearing."' 



Now this man don't know what he is talking about. lie has confowndcd 

 mice aiul moles together. It is the mice, and not the moles, that have been 

 running about in this man's orchard eating his trees, Eut he believes it is 

 moli'S, and has a fixed [)rcjndice in his mintl against them, which no argument 

 ]>erhaps can remove. AVo beg of farmers to learn facts about things in 

 which they are so much interested. 



277. MifC and llifir Misfhief.— Mice, we willingly concede, are mischievous 

 — in young orchards excessively so. AVet seasons are favorable to the rapid 

 increase of field mice, and wLeu followed by snowy wintere aud uufrozea 



