196 HOW TO GROW GOOD CORN. 



cious police than to condemn and execute without 

 very strong evidence. 



Yarrell, in his beautiful " British Birds," has the 

 following remarks upon this highly-important sub- 

 ject :— 



The attempts occasionally made by man to interfere with the 

 balance of powers as arranged and sustained by Nature, are seldom 

 successful. An extensive experiment appears to have been made in 

 some of the agricultural districts on the Continent, the result of 

 which has been the opinion that farmers do wrong in destroying 

 rooks, jays, sparrows, and, indeed, birds in general on their farms, 

 particularly where there are orchards. In our own country, particu- 

 larly on some very large farms in Devonshire, the proprietors deter- 

 mined, a few summers ago, to try the result of offering a great 

 reward for heads of rooks ; but the issue proved destructive to 

 the farms, for nearly the whole of the crops failed for three succes- 

 sive years, and they have since been forced to import rooks and 

 other birds to stock their farms with. A similar experiment was 

 made a few years ago in a northern county, particularly in reference 

 to rooks, but with no better success ; the farmers were obliged to 

 reinstate the rooks to save their crops. 



But as, perhaps, the most interesting account of 

 the value of rooks will be found in an extract from 

 the Magazine of Natural History, vol. vi. p. 142, we 

 cannot do better than transcribe it : — 



" In the neighbourhood of my native place (in the county of York)," 

 says the writer, Mr. T. Clithero, " is a rookery belonging to W. Vava- 

 sour, Esq., of Weston, in Wharfdale, in which it is estimated that 

 there are 10,000 rooks; that lib. of food a week i3 a very moderate 

 allowance for each bird, and that nine-tenths of their food consists of 

 worms, insects, and their larvae ; for, although they do considerable 

 damage to the fields for a few weeks in seed-time, and a few weeks 

 in harvest, particularly in backward seasons, yet a very large propor- 

 tion of their food, even at these seasons, consists of insects and worms, 

 which (if we except a few acorns and walnuts in autumn) compose at 

 all other times the whole of their subsistence. Here, then, if my data 



