232 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



lettuce and beet seed, and how this annoyd mother, who was 

 in the habit of growing her own seeds. But that which fixes 

 them most surely and certainly in my memory was the seeing 

 of them in the clearing. I am glad that I have come through 

 and witnessed every phase of life from that of the pioneer and 

 frontiersman to the era of large cities, and witnessed all that 

 that means in the latter days of American progress and civiliz- 

 ation. The opening up of a country is a serious matter. It 

 means hard toil and much deprivation, and yet there is a fas- 

 cination about it. One feature connected with it was the "clear- 

 ing," as it was called, of the land, which was then covered with 

 a dense and heavy forest. This we did by first deadening the 

 timber by cutting through the bark in a line entirely around 

 the trees. After a year or two the trees would begin to decay 

 and the limbs fall off, and the land would grow up in polk 

 weeds, thistle and other seed-bearing weeds. This made an 

 ideal place for the goldfinches. It was in such a clearing, one 

 that I helped to make, that I saw the goldfinches most abund- 

 antly. 



In his Birds of Indiana, Mr. Butler says of the goldfinches 

 that "they are the seed destroyers par excellence. Sometimes 

 it is something desirable, like the seed of lettuce, turnip and 

 hemp, but more often it is the baneful dandelion, burdock, mul- 

 len and other pernicious weeds. Sunflower seed is the favorite 

 food. In winter the seeds of grasses, rag weeds, horse weeds 

 and occasionally sycamore are eaten." At Buzzard's Roost 

 we grow quite a quantity of sunflowers, and it is a most inter- 

 esting sight to see the goldfinches coming from every direc- 

 tion to feed upon them ; it is a constant coming and going. 

 They have also been reported as being destroyers of plant lice 

 and the Hessian fly, Rocky Mountain locust and other insects. 



