Birds and the Fruit-Farm 287 



Or would he reject an offer of labor that would 

 work out that increase? But the farmers and 

 fruit-growers of the country may have this increase 

 for nothing if they will protect the birds. On the 

 low estimate of one bird's nest and its brood for 

 every acre of land, the birds of Erie County destroy 

 in one season of four months — and the ravages of 

 worms and their destruction by the birds is for a 

 longer period — the enormous total of 125,000 tons of 

 insects! This means six hundred and twenty-five 

 tons every day dining the season. But there are 

 more than one nest and a brood to every acre, and 

 birds do a greater service than this consimiption of 

 enemies of orchard and vine. In the single coimty 

 of Erie, and chiefly in the Lake Shore Valley, the 

 birds, assuming one pair for every acre of land, 

 destroy in one season enough insects to fill a freight 

 train fifty miles long, each car holding thirty tons ! 

 A similar train may be drawn out of every fruit 

 valley in the United States, — ^by the birds. Shall 

 we kill them? Is it even good business to protect 

 them? Dining the season these friends of ours 

 destroy thirty pounds of insects on every acre of 

 the farm — ^that is, more than a ton of insects in 

 one season on a farm of sixty acres. What fruit- 

 grower would like to handle a ton of bugs and 

 worms? There are innumerable species of fungi 

 which ruin tree and vine, bush and plant, bark, 

 root, leaf, bud, flower, and fruit; no part of the 

 living plant is exempt. Not all fungi are bird-food. 

 We do not know exactly the amount of service the 



