282 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No.-5» 



ference to tliis matter. He will find that almost all 

 our most common and numerous birds nourish 

 themselves and their young by the insects which are 

 so destructive to greetuiess atul liuittulness — a 

 very lew specie*:, to which we have referred before 

 — destroy the useful produce of the earth, and even 

 they do not half the injury which is caused by 

 the trespasses of their paid slaughterers. Butttieir 

 ravages are lar overbalanced by the multitudes, 

 and they the most persecuted because the most 

 inoffensive and exposed, whose sole occupation is 

 the rearing of their broods and the instinctive 

 search lor and destruction of these insect enemies 

 of vegetation — the worm which consumes and 

 corrodes the thriving and spreading root — the fly 

 which wastes the green and shady leaf— and the 

 myriads of other tiny but baneful creatures — the 

 almost microscope vermin of our fields and gar- 

 dens, which canker, decay, and disease, if they 

 do not devour, the tender and budding plant — and 

 which are only less in number and less formidable 

 than the locusts of Egypt because of the services 

 of the race which some look upon as only made to 

 be destroyed. 



Bui let us further inquire, if we would have still 

 larger and more impressive ideas of the impor- 

 tance of our subject, what are the most numerous 

 and general causes of the great and distressing 

 fluctuations in the quantity and quality of the pro- 

 duce of our fertile and almost illimitable country, 

 and the necessarily consequent variations in those 

 branches of our commerce of which agriculture 

 is the more direct and immediate parent, and even 

 in those w^hich are more remotely connected with 

 it. What destroys, year after year, the growing 

 fruits of many a faithfully wrought garden, the lux- 

 uriant and hard earned grain, of many a waving 

 field, nipped in their bloom and consumed in their 

 beautyand promise by some untimely, and, alas, 

 increasing cause. The great staples of many of 

 our stales are wasted and ruined too often to al- 

 low of supineness upon the subject. We would 

 point a finger, which would warn while it instructs, 

 to the teeming arswers to the questions we have 

 proposed, which etand forth in the numberless pa- 

 ragraphs which the journals of many a season of 

 want and hunger unlbld, and which tell sadly of 

 a cause and eiTect, in regard to whose prevention 

 we are powerless, without the aid of the perse- 

 cuted tribes whose services we have been eulogiz- 

 ing. And what is still more alarming, as "the 

 hum of business and settlement increase, as the 

 mouths which are ready to devour the produce of 

 the soil become more numerous and clamorous — 

 the cause of this want is increasing, and its only 

 remedy becoming every day less proportionate in 

 power to the duty which it performs. It is a 

 gloomy thought, but gloom is not enough; the 

 evil is serious, but like other evils whose progress 

 is slow, and whose causes are minute and rami- 

 fied, hey are not duly appreciated; the subject 

 needs combined reflection and steady action. Let 

 our remarks especially impress on the young the 

 thought, that every missile aimed in sport fends 

 to lake food fi-om the mouths of the poor and fa- 

 mishing — that if successful in its aim it destroys 

 its pretty victim, however small in proportion 

 may be its immediate and perceivable eflt;ct — it de- 

 prives the agriculturists of the life-time labor of 

 one faithful servant at least, perhaps of more who 

 perish in a deserted nest. Let them make hira 



remember that every swallow which pierces the 

 air, so long the sprightly mocker of his ambitious 

 sportsmanship, so long aimed at in hope, but per- 

 haps in vain while on the wing, but slain in re- 

 venge when it alights to rest, is making more 

 sure and effective the seed of the sower, is surely 

 increasing the bread of the reaper, and food for 

 industrious poverty and national wealth. The 

 race was not formed in vain. Each one has its task 

 to ])erfbrm; we sin in wantonly destroying them, 

 first against him who made them lor his glory, 

 then against ourselves, willingly ignorant of their 

 untaught " labor of love." 



We would apeal, then, to the young, to most 

 active and thoughtless enemies of the feathered 

 creation: to the rising generation, the hope of the 

 country, who are unwillingly, and perhaps, as far 

 as motive is concerned, innocently doing that 

 country which it is their high ambition to serve, 

 an injury, which is irreparable, and deep. And 

 what is more directly interesting to themselves, 

 though perhaps not so deserving of thought, they 

 are by every act of des-truction, injuring that dis- 

 position, and those sensibilities, which are so 

 lovely in many of the young, but which is lost as 

 manhood steals apace, perhaps by the united in- 

 dulgence of this and other hardening habits. If 

 to such an aspiring youth, joyful and giving joy, 

 in the glad hope and promise of future usefulness, 

 the solt intercession against cruelty, of a tender mo- 

 ther or a fond sister, come in vain, or are derided 

 and disobeyed, as the weaknesses of feminine 

 hearts, we would offer the higher and more sacred 

 consideration, that if they are too manly to yield to 

 such mild petitions, they should be manly enough 

 to feel and to be proud to feel, a responsibility for 

 their country's welfare, breaking (in with every 

 ray of knowledge, and beating with every pulse 

 of young and buoyant life. They are not too 

 young to be gladdened and ennobled by the 

 thought that even they are contributing their mite, 

 and that in a comparatively important way, to na- 

 tional honor, growth and advancement. We ap- 

 peal to all their warm and peculiar feelings which 

 can be brought to bear upon the subject, that we 

 may induce them to give, if not their positive as- 

 sistance in helping on the work of reformation in 

 this respect, at least their negative aid in restrain- 

 ing their own strange propensities and tempta- 

 tions to slaughter, for amusement, this usefiii 

 race. 



If then, these creatures, when considered col- 

 lectively, are of so much advantage and profit to 

 the cultivator, and have so important a connexion 

 with the agricultural interests of the community — 

 if their destruction is so widely and inconside- 

 rately carried on, and their decrease so rapid 

 and 'alarming— if the fact presses upon us thai 

 even in thisthe youth of our government, when 

 our jubilee of republicanism has scarcely passed, 

 and in this thinly settled state of our country, we 

 are fast losing from eye and ear the flight, the 

 song, and especially the services of these fisather-^ 

 ed fellow-workers in the culture of the soil — if 

 they are fast disappearing from among us and 

 around us, fiist yielding to the hum and the danger 

 of crowded settlements and busy and wanton life, 

 and leaving their annual work undone— we must 

 awake ; as a great agricultural people we must 

 awake, and look to our interests; we must protect 

 these servants in their old habits and employment 



