The Lancaster Farmer. 



Prof. S. S. RATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., OCTOBER, 1878. 



Vol. S. No. 10. 



AN APPEAL. 



It is with feelings of uniiir.ilified regret, 

 luiiigli'cl witli imu'li iinxiely of iiiiiul, that tlic 

 imblisher of Tue Faumer Ls compelled to 

 again call the attention of its patrons to their 

 unpaid subscriptions and other pecuniary 

 obligations. We are largely indebted for 

 necessary material and labor, and we have no 

 other resource from whicli to obtain the 

 means to meet the demands against us save 

 from our subscribers and advertisers. The 

 amount due us from each is but small indeed, 

 and will fall lightly upon them, whilst in the 

 aggregate it is large to us, and our failure to 

 realize it must overwhelm us in financial dis- 

 aster. For nearly two years we have been 

 thrusting our hands into our pockets and 

 dealing out all that came into them, in the 

 payment of bills involved in our publication, 

 and now we liud them entirely exhausted and 

 large balances agaiust us still unpaid and 

 due. We have been a very slave during the 

 last twenty months in the service of The 

 Farmek, and if we obtained every penny 

 due us we would hardly realize the wages of 

 a common street scavenger above our una- 

 voidable expenses. 



When we assumed the responsibilities of 

 publication we did so hopefully and with a 

 determination to do our best ; and we also 

 supposed we should at least be able to in- 

 demnify the editor (who has toiled so long 

 without remuneration,) for the paper, ink, 

 stamps, envelopes, and "midnight oil" ex- 

 hausted in his labors, but we have not done 

 anything of the kind for the want of means. 

 Dear patrons, think of these things, and 

 . remember the absolute necessities of the 

 • Publisher. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 



Our friend Mr. William Weidle, of East 

 Orange street, has again remembered us ma- 

 terially by a generous donation of pears and 

 grapes from his premises near the prison 

 grounds, for which we make our most grate- 

 ful bow. The grapes were of the Isradla 

 variety, and although there may be varieties 

 superior to them in size and flavor, yet the 

 Israella possesses a quality of some impor- 

 tance in an economical point of view. Mr. 

 W. brought us some of these gra|)es that 

 ripened in August, contemporary with the 

 Hartford Prolilic, and they contiiuied from 

 that time hanging on the vines up to the 

 present time, (Oct. 10,) without dropping or 

 wilting ; as solid, as lu.scious and as fragrant 

 as they were in August. They are some- 

 what thicker in the skin than most other 

 popular varieties, and are, therefore, less 

 liable to injury from wasps, hornets, bees or 

 other insects, which surely is of some value 

 now, since this subject is becoming one of 

 more or less public discussion. Mr. W., how- 

 ever, thinks they should be protected from a 

 too cold winter exposure. 



The pears were of the Sheldon, Seckel, 

 Lawrence, Henderson, Anjeau, Buerre Diel, 

 Buerre ilaria, and Duchess Angouleme va- 

 rieties, and although there are differences in 

 their qualities, yet to one who is not a culti- 

 vator of pears, who only enjoys an occasional 

 opportunity of partaking of them, and who 

 may not taste two different varieties in the 

 same day, or the same week, they all seem 



good, and he cannot so readily distinguish be- 

 tween them. This was our ' 'lix, " for wc wanted 

 them to last as long as possible, as a sort of 

 appetizer, and when we tasted a secodd varii'ty 

 we had almost forgotten what the fust was 

 like. There are some varieties of the pear, 

 however, that are so j^ronoimred that they can 

 nearly always be told even by those wlio oidy 

 indulge in them semi-occasionally, such, for 

 instance, as the Bartlett and the Seckel. In 

 regard to this last named, the specimen we 

 refer to could not consistently be classed with 

 "small pears," for it had developed itself to 

 the dignity of "medium" at least, and this 

 should suggest some distinguishing iirelix or 

 allix to the name, for we have seen them differ- 

 ing in size as much as "shellbarks" and 

 "Susquehaiuia peaches "—almost. 

 ^ 



ENGLISH SPARROWS. 



Lancaster city is just at this time pretty 

 well stocked with these active, saucy and 

 pugnacious little denizens ; and now, since 

 they have become more or less discredited, 

 the prospect is that next season they may be 

 resolved into an intolerable nuisance. Ti'king 

 an afternoon walk through the northwestern 

 part of the city, a few days ago, we met with 

 several large flocks of them, numbering from 

 fifty, probably, to one hundred in each flock, 

 and seeing so many of them thus congregated 

 together, it suggested the idea that they "possi- 

 bly might learn the American habit of migrat- 

 ing to a more congenial region. We know 

 this would be very desirable to a good many 

 people who have lost all confidence in them as 

 insect scavengers. And this is not all, for no 

 doubt those same people — should the sparniws 

 conclude to emigrate — would earnestly wish 

 that they might find their new quarters so 

 agreeable as to prevent them from ever re- 

 turning again. Kow that the season is over 

 and there is no fruit for them to appropriate— 

 if they ever did depredate much in that way — 

 we think it would be difticult to estimate in 

 dollars and cents just how much damage we 

 did sustain from them during the past sea.son. 

 Indeed, their sins are prolmbly more of 

 omission than commission. They were intro- 

 duced into this country for the purpose of 

 destroying caterpillars and other noxious in- 

 sects, and it is alleged that they "don't destroy 

 them worth a cent." Xow, that the thing 

 has been done and they have been domiciled 

 amongst us, we may well wonder how any 

 well informed person could expect that 

 granivorous, or seed-eating birds, should 

 manifest any special liking for insects. True, if 

 nothing else were accessible, they would pro- 

 bably rather eat them than suffer hunger or 

 starve ; but fortunately to them, and unfor- 

 tunately to us, they liave access to many de- 

 sirable little "tit-bits" in the public highways 

 and back yanls of the cities and towns, and 

 many of these are intentionally furnished by 

 benevolent citizens. Families shake their 

 table-cloths three times a day in their back 

 yards or garden walks on purpose to feed the 

 sparrow.s, either through sheer charity, or as 

 an expedient to prevent the birds from depre- 

 dating upon their fruit in summer, or from 

 destroying their fruit-buds in the winter. All 

 summer our streets have been full of sparrows, 

 and the more public the thoroughfare, and 

 the more horses traveling over them, the more 

 numerous the sparrows ; showing their normal 

 granivorous iiroclivities by industriously ex- 

 ploring the daily excrenientitious droppings, 

 appropriating every undigested grain or seed 

 they yield. If ever these birds have been insect 

 scavengers, they seem to be perfectly de- 

 moralized now. 



But "give the devil his due," for they cer- 

 tainly do destroy some insects ; perhaps more 

 than they get credit for. In common with 



many other liiids, of divers families and 

 habits, they do feed their young with the 

 softer kinds of insects, but whether those arc 

 among the most noxious kinds has not yet 

 been determined. They do not seem to have 

 any i)articular love, however, for caterpillars 

 and slugs, but they will devour a goodly num- 

 ber of even these in rearing their young 

 broods. Some caterpillars, however, must be 

 very repugnant to any kind of birds. A few 

 days ago a gentleman in this city brought us 

 about fifty caterpillars that he found on his 

 premi.ses, destroying the foliage of a Scotch 

 pine, (Finns si/lrestris) which we feel certain 

 no bird would eat any more than they would 

 drink turpentine, for they emitted a" strong 

 turpentine odor that could be smelt two or 

 three fi-et away from them. With whatever 

 bad (lualities they niay.bi^ endowed, their 

 presence certainly enlivens the dull tedium of 

 dreary winter, and whatever they have done, 

 or left undone during the summer, when the 

 winter's cheerless frosts prevail, aud they 

 approach our doors and plead for their "daily 

 bread," our hearts must be callous indeed if 

 we can withhold it. We reflect that it is not 

 their fault that tliey are here, and whilst here 

 we nnist either feed them or let them .starve. 



In the foregoing we have given our reflec- 

 tions upon the English sparrow from the town 

 side of the question mainly ; but it any re- 

 liance can be placed in newspaper paragraphs, 

 the following from the Utim Observer gives a 

 view of the "little folks " as they sometimes 

 appear and act in the country, where the 

 charge has been made that they arc gradually 

 driving out all the otlier Ijirds ; and not con- 

 tent with that, it appears that they are 

 making an attempt to also drive out the 

 people. If such conduct is a forecast of what 

 they will do when tliey get the power, ^ye 

 can't be made ac(piainled with it too soon, la 

 order that we may hn forearmed against it ; 

 for we may reasonably expect that what they 

 have done in New York they probably will da 

 in Pennsylvania at the opportune time. There 

 is one thing certain, that, like the Colorado 

 potato beetle, they are "making histoid," 

 and have gotten their name i)retty well up in 

 the agricultural, scientific, social and domestic 

 chronicles of the times. Had they proved a 

 real and unadulterated blessing, it is very 

 probable that their notoriety or fame— what- 

 ever we may Vie pleased to call it— would not 

 have spread as rapidly and as far as has been 

 the case under tlieir present ambiguous (some 

 think diabolical or pernicious) character. 



Sparrows Attack>nd;Put to'Flight a Man. 



"( )ne mile and forty rods north of the beauti- 

 ful village of Sauquilit resides Mr. Andrew J. 

 Green. Day before yesterday he started to 

 walk to the village. ' Swinging along with his 

 wonted stride, and reaching a point withui 

 half a mile of his destination, his attention 

 was attracted by the strange actions of a large 

 lloek of sparrows, hovering down over the 

 sidewalk, flving rapidly'hither and thither in 

 great excitement. As he approached them, 

 and when in their midst, they evinced no fear 

 of his presence, and instead of flying away on 

 his entrance among them, they pressed around 

 him in greater numbers, and almost imme- 

 diately attacked him with their sharp bills 

 with great fiuy. At first he was disposed to 

 treat Uie attack as a trivial matter, and at- 

 tempted to brush them away with his hands, 

 but the few thus displaced were immediately 

 replaced by myriads more, darting, chattering 

 and piercing him with their .sharp l)ills, like 

 "the flight of a cloud of arrows." Their 

 immense nimibers and persistent charge was 

 so great that he was soon thrown to the 

 ground. Now thoroughly alarmed he strug- 

 gled to his feet. Covering his eyes and face 



