annual cost, $8,250,000, for spraying the apple trees, makes the 

 sum of $20,000,000 a year lost on this healthful article of diet. 



Besides the many bird helpers of summer which, if pro- 

 tected, would hold in check the vast army of insects depre- 

 dating on corn, wheat and other field crops, The Farm Journal 

 Liberty Bell Bird Club, Philadelphia, calls the attention of 

 orchardists to the little winter raiders on the small enemies 

 of fruit which hide in the bark of the trees. 



"Lessen the insect damage to your trees and fruit by mak- 

 ing your orchards winter sanctuaries for the insectivorous 

 birds," urges this club. It cites the incident of a pear grower 

 in New York whose entire pear crop had been destroyed one 

 year by the tree psylla. The pear grower did not expect any 

 crop of fruit the following year, but after flocks of nuthatches 

 had worked in his orchards all winter he could scarcely find 

 an insect in his full-bearing trees the following summer. In 

 another instance, eight bushels of pears without a worm hole 

 in one were picked from a pear tree which harbored a happy 

 bird family all winter. The nut hatch, attracted by suet hung 

 in the tree, can be depended upon to keep his tree home free 

 from marauding insects. 



The titmice family are probably pre-eminent as eaters of 

 insects injurious to fruit trees. They work all the year, too, 

 when their restless associates have flown to a sunnier clime. 

 Their peculiar value is their diligent search for small insects 

 and eggs in the bark of trees where other birds overlook them. 

 During the winter months the chicadee's food is made of lar- 

 vae, chrysalides and eggs of moths. In the spring and sum- 

 mer he dines on plant-lice, weevils, army-worms, tent-cater- 

 pillars and fall canker-worms. Seventeen snout-beetles, known 

 as weevils, were found in the stomach of one little chikadee. 

 Shall we leave such a faithful little helper "out in the snow, 

 with no place to go" for shelter in the worst storms? Wood- 

 peckers, too, some of which remain in the Northern states 

 throughout the year, have beaks and tongues especially fitted 

 for digging out and devouring insects not accessible to other 

 birds. When you hear Mr. Woodpecker knocking for an open- 

 ing into his winter commissary in your favorite fruit tree, he 

 is not trying to destroy it but is after the wood-boring larvae 

 which he will devour and so save your tree, 



9 



