18 



It is impossible within the limits of this circular to give 

 even a list of the important plants which attract wild ducks 

 and geese, but information regarding some of the most useful 

 of such plants may be found in the following publications of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture: Bureau of Biological 

 Survey, Circular 81, and Department of Agriculture Bulletins 

 58 and 205. All may be obtained of the Superintendent of 

 Documents, United States Department of Agritjulture, Wash- 

 ington, District of Columbia. 



Plants for Protecting Cultivated Fruits. 



The chief fruit-eating birds in Massachusetts are the robin, 

 the catbird and the cedar waxwing. The flicker, English spar- 

 row, Baltimore oriole and a few other species occasionally are 

 mischievous, and the starling, a recent introduction from the 

 Old World, seems likely to become most destructive of all. 

 Cherries are most often attacked by fruit-eating birds, but all 

 small fruits are eaten by them. It is not good biology to 

 shoot birds for taking fruit. It is better to provide fruit 

 enough for ourselves and the birds, and thus retain their serv- 

 ices as insect destroyers. It will pay the fruit grower to lure 

 them away from his cultivated cherries and berries, if possible, 

 by setting out plants that bear earlier and more attractive 

 fruit. M}^ experiments with the native red mulberry were 

 successful in protecting cherries, and I have watched a garden 

 where a single tree of the Downing mulberry entirely protected 

 several trees of cultivated cherries of the harder varieties. No 

 native bird troubled the cherries although the English sparrows 

 occasionally pecked one. I have learned from fruit growers in 

 New Jersey that mulberry trees protected their cherry crops 

 from robins even in a very dry season, when robins elsewhere 

 had been destructive to the fruit. The Russian mulberry is 

 very early and will grow in southeastern Massachusetts. Else- 

 where in the State, as hereinbefore stated, the white mulberry, 

 the red or the Downing or New American would serve. The 

 advantages of the Downing or New American are that it is a 

 quick grower and fruiter, bears very early in the season and 

 appears to be perfectly hardy, at least in eastern Massachu- 

 setts. 



