Birds and the Fruit-Farm 291 



Does the United States Steel or the Standard 

 Oil permit any such waste? Does the Pennsyl- 

 vania Railroad, or the Vanderbilt, or the Harriman, 

 or the Baltimore and Ohio, or the Pacific? Does 

 the Cunard Line, or the American, or the Allen? 

 Does any human being, who can be left safely at 

 large permit an annual waste in his business of 

 twelve per cent.? But farmers and fruit-growers 

 permit this waste; they are the guilty party. The 

 farmer will fight the railroad when it attempts to 

 take in a few rods of his land to widen its tracks. 

 He will go everlastingly to law with his neighbor 

 over a disputed fence-line when all the land in 

 dispute is not worth fifty dollars; and at the same 

 time he will suffer himself to be cut off twelve 

 per cent, and more every year, and will actually 

 superintend the wasting so as to make it larger. 

 He kills protective birds himself and encourages 

 everybody else to kill them. 



At least twelve per cent, of all our land products 

 are yearly destroyed by worms; yet, beginning in 

 Texas and Florida and continuing to the Canadian 

 border, from ocean to ocean, the wanton and 

 wicked destruction of birds goes steadily on. 

 Wealth is rapidly retreating to the country, to 

 the farm, to better farming and fruit-growing. 

 "Things,'* says Emerson, "refuse to be mis- 

 managed long.** The increase by more than 

 twenty billions of dollars in farm values from 1900 

 to 19 10 means the necessity of bird protection. 

 Owners of such wealth will not tolerate a twelve 



