REPORT ON THE ROBIN. 79 



its young need the succulent fruits to rear them, would it be wise policy 

 to remove the protection which our game laws have thrown around it? 



Kg one but such of you who raise the smaller fruits for the market 

 can estimate the actual profit on each box of strawberries, raspberries 

 and blackberries. If it is as great as I suppose it may be, it seems to 

 me better to have more birds and less fruit, M'hich can be enjoyed only 

 by those who can aftbrd to pay such exorbitant prices. I do not know 

 whether any argument against the robin is based on the ditficulty of 

 raising such fruits to be sold at moderate or loio prices^ but the rather on 

 the seeming cupidity of the owner of the cherry tree, for example, who 

 would be glad to sell every quart for any amount of money he could ob- 

 tain. If it be then to make money and exorbitant profits, resort to some 

 mechanical protection, by nets or the like, were no bad resort, and better 

 than running any risk in extirpating a xiseful and pleasant bird. The 

 finest and rarest sorts of pears, the earliest or best peaches, and the finest 

 and choicest grapes will always command any price, quite enough to 

 remunerate the expense of raising them ; and so would it not be with the 

 cherry and other smaller fruits? 



The Chairman of your Committee speaks with great diffidence on this 

 branch of the subject, and rejiresents so far as he knows no one's views 

 but his own. Having had some occasion to watch the market retail 

 prices on a single article, the rasj^berry, he feels that too much money 

 may be expected from this fruit. Indeed, why should it not be as cheap 

 as the wild berries, when the plants will grow anywhere, and better than 

 anywhere else, in the shade of trees, so that every garden could raise 

 enough for family consumption in spots where nothing else would grow? 

 Fruit growers who furnish the market doubtless have a different system 

 and make the raspberry an extensive crop. It should be the aim of all 

 agricultural pursuits to make the products of the farm, orchard and fruit 

 grounds as advantageous to the consumer as possible; and when on in- 

 crease of cultivation increase of purchasers shall be the ratio, the in- 

 crease should be leaning towards as wide a consumption as may be. 



Feeling then, as I do, that it is yet an open question, regarding the 

 robin, and one which requires much time and careful investigation to de- 

 cide, I beg leave to refer the matter to such of you whose interests are 

 more in that way than are mine. But before closing this report let me 

 allude to another topic connected with your interests as fruit growers 

 and as cultivators in general. It must be evident that the possible ex- 

 tirpation of insects by birds is to be anticipated by the protection of the 

 smaller birds, such as those whose bills, slender, delicate and soft are 

 fitted to probe the blossoms of plants and extract the kinds of insects 

 which despoil our gardens. There are others, such as the swallow tribe, 

 which feed on the wing and take an immense amount of prey as food. 

 An accurate and observing entomologist assures me that he took from 



