220 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



ricebirds, and that he, himself, personally, bought 75 kegs 

 a year. Four or five bags of shot were bought, as it was 

 necessary to kill a few birds to scare the others. Two out 

 of four bags of shot, however, were buckshot which was ham- 

 mered out of shape so that the shot would make a humming 

 noise in the air and scare the birds. These buckshot killed 

 very few birds. Mr. Allston at one time had 900 acres in 

 rice fields and probably about 150 hands. His help and 

 their families aggregated something over 400 people. He 

 had very few birds shot because if the shot Avere used on 

 the rice fields it would spoil the rice, and the shooters would 

 tramp down the rice in picking up the dead birds. JSTow 

 (1912), on looking over his rice field, there were so few birds 

 that it would hardly pay to take the trouble of frightening 

 them away. 



Lest Mr. Allston's statement, regarding the powder nsed, 

 might be deemed an exaggeration, we may refer here to the 

 statement made Ijy Captain Hazzard in the report of the 

 Commissioner of Agricidture for 188G, page 219, in which 

 he says, " During the bird season we employ about 100 bird- 

 minders, who shoot from 3 to 5 kegs of powder daily, of 25 

 pounds each; add to this shot and caps and you will have 

 some idea what these birds cost one planter." 



Mr. J. Henry Donaldson, who has charge of some of the 

 largest rice fields, stated that no one else in his vicinity was 

 planting much rice now, and practically all the birds came 

 to his fields. On September 20, upon my arrival in the 

 fields, a good part of the rice was cut. Mr. Donaldson said 

 that shooters on his fields were all shooting for market and 

 not to protect the rice, and that such shooting as they did 

 was little protection, as each gunner would wait until he 

 could get a large number of birds at one shot, and meanwhile 

 the birds had a good opportunity to feed. He formerly hired 

 bird-minders, but did not let them shoot many birds. 



On my arrival at the rice fields, colored gunners were seen 

 in all directions, and the popping of guns was continual. All 

 the shooting appeared to be done by creeping up to birds when 

 they were sitting on stubble or on the heaped-up rice, select- 



