DOES IT PAY THE FARMER TO PROTECT BIRDS? 173 



dollar per acre, and as the lands under crop in the United States in 

 1899 were 290,000,000 acres, the good work accomplished by the spar- 

 rows is of very great value to the farmer. Without their aid the 

 cost of fighting weeds would be vastly increased, and no doubt in 

 places profitable agriculture would be almost impossible. 



Some of the sparrow tribe, as the purple finch and grosbeak, are 

 fond of buds, and in spring may be frequently seen in apple, cherry, 

 peach, and other trees, greedily eating the buds or the stamens of the 

 blossoms. No doubt a certain percentage of fruit is lost through the 

 agency of these birds, but budding by birds in itself, if not carried too 

 far, is by no means objectionable ; and neither of the birds mentioned, 

 nor any native bird that shares the habit, is numerous enough (except 

 in California) or sufficiently confirmed in the habit to seriously 

 reduce the fruit crop. Indeed budding by hand to prevent over- 

 bearing and to improve the size and quality of fruit is a common 

 practice, and it is probable that, as stated above, in most cases no 

 actual loss of profit follows budding by our native birds. Whether 

 so or not, the purple finch destroys many insects, caterpillars among 

 them, and hence earns favor in the eyes of the farmer; while a still 

 stronger case may be made out for the rose-breasted grosbeak, which 

 is a most determined foe of the Colorado beetle, and probably destroys 

 more of these dreaded insects than does any other bird possibly than 

 do all other birds combined. The insects eaten by the old birds, how- 

 ever, are but a tithe of the number they feed to their young, for nest- 

 lings thrive best and grow faster on a diet composed almost exclu- 

 sively of insects. 



Until the English sparrow was introduced it would have been 

 safe to say that all the sparrows were friends of the farmer and de- 

 served protection at his hands. Unlike our native species, however, 

 this bird has bad habits far outweighing any possible good that it 

 does, even if the most liberal estimate be made of the comparatively 

 small number of insects that it destroys or the weed seed it eats. It is 

 a conspicuous member of the seed-eating group, as its structure abun- 

 dantly proves, and this well-known fact should have prevented its 

 introduction into the United States to perform the service of an insect 

 eater. By preference the bird is a scavenger of the city streets. Out- 

 side the city the bird's fondness for seeds does not stop with weed 

 seed. The smaller grains are liable to attack at all stages of growth, 

 from sowing time to harvest, and the total damage to the grain crop 

 of the country inflicted by this pest at the present time amounts to 

 many thousands of dollars annually. 



This sparrow, like some of our native species, is fond of the buds 

 of fruit trees. Where it exists in small numbers the injury it does 

 in this way, like that of our own sparrows, is too small to count 

 much against it; but the bird is very prolific and in many suburban 



