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THE GENliSEE FAKMEE. 



The order of Nature -would be broken up, and tbe growth of forests and grasses would 

 extend out of all proportion, as compared with the graminivorous and carnivorous 

 mammalia. The change might not arrest public attention at first, but soon the new 

 order of things would indicate the usefulness and necessity of both insects and birds. 

 These were created because the plan of the Creator would be incomplete without them. 



If this feebly expressed view of created beings be sound, man can not nearly exter- 

 minate the birds of a country and not, in effect, augment indefinitely all the insects 

 that prey upon his crops, and greatly annoy his domestic animals. We wish to lay the 

 axe at the root of the tree, and show that natural laws demand the multiplication of 

 the beautiful feathered tribes, whose music has a deeper meaning as the voice of the 

 Invisible, than man with his murderous guns has yet dreamed of. 



Suppose the State of New York had a thousand robins where it now has one ; how 

 many caterpillars, moths, worms, grubs, and other voracious insects would these birds 

 consume? If public opinion were only enlightened on this subject, so as to protect all 

 insectivorous birds, we should soon cease to complain of curculios, weevils, peach tree 

 and apple tree borers, pea-bugs, and a hundred garden bugs, flies, snails, grasshoppers, 

 locusts, cotton, and tobacco worms. We have had opportunities for studying most of 

 these depredators, and regard the unnatural destruction of birds, or their expulsion 

 from all so-called civilized communities, as the principal cause of the increase of insects. 

 The reproductive powers of these is incredible to one who has paid no attention to 

 entomology. There is not an animal nor a plant known to science upon which no insect 

 subsists. The larvai of mosquetoes consume myriads of infusoria that grow in stagnant 

 water. The millions of " wigglers" that may be seen in reservoirs of rain water, grow 

 and wax fat on something more substantial than air or pure water. By consuming the 

 organized elements in which decay has already commenced, insects often purify water 

 and the atmosphere. The young of a common flesh-fly adds 200 'fold to its weight in 

 24 hours. This can only be done by the enormous consumption of very nutritious 

 food. Imagine an ox that weighs 1000 lbs. adding 199,000 lbs. to his weight in a day, 

 or a year ! 



If it were not for the fact that insects destroy one another, and thus keep down their 

 numbers, they might, perhaps, entirely exterminate all other living things, and then die 

 from starvation, leaving not a plant nor animal on the globe. Among all the 100,000 

 different plants, and 200,000 or 300,000 different animals, how wonderful that no family 

 of either obtains the mastery, and rules supreme ! Plants and animials maintain a 

 perfect republic ; the balance of power between them all is complete. Man, by his 

 superior endowments, is able to disturb this comprehensive and delicate balance more 

 than any other order of beings ; and he can never fulfil his high destiny until he 

 studies, comprehends, and obeys the laws of his Maker. To this standard our agricul- 

 tural and horticultural knowledge and practice must rise before we have a rii^ht to 

 expect complete success. Let us then study Nature and observe how nearly all the 

 feathered tribes, with which we are familiar, hatch their young at that season of the 

 year when insects and their larvae most abound, when so many millions are daily con- 

 sumed to feed the voracious broods of rapidly growing birds. In Maryland and 

 Virginia, largo flocks of turkeys are reared expressly to be driven through tobacco 

 fields by children "to worm the crop." A turkey from tbe time it is large enough to 

 eat a worm till it attains its full growth, will consume an incredible number of insects, 

 and forcibly illustrates an important natural law. Barnyard fowls, doves, and pigeons 

 may also be cultivated at a profit. Of all the works written on Poultry, we have never 

 seen one that treated the subject in a truly scientific and philosophic spirit. When an 

 adult turkey eats 100 ounces of dry corn, what will the excrements formed by this corn 

 weigh after they are dried ? Who has investigated this matter ? 



In their relations to agriculture, both ornithology and entomology are much less 



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