440 FRUIT. 



really would be, were it not for some insect pest that stands ready 

 to devour and destroy. In countries where the labor of women and 

 children is applied, at the rate of a few cents a day, to the extermi- 

 nation of insects, it is comparatively easy to keep the latter under 

 control. But nobody can afford to catch the curculios and other 

 oeetles at the price of a dollar a day for labor. The entomologists 

 ought, therefore, to explain to us some natural laws which have been 

 violated to bring upon us such an insect scourge ; or at least point 

 out to us some cheap way of calling in nature to our aid, in getting 

 rid of the vagrants. For our own part, we fully believe that it is to 

 the gradual decrease of small birds partly from the destruction of 

 our forests, but mainly from the absence of laws against that vaga- 

 bond race of unfledged spoilsmen who shoot sparrows when they 

 ought to be planting corn that this inordinate increase of insects is 

 to be attributed. Nature intended the small birds to be maintained 

 by the destruction of insects, and if the former are wantonly de- 

 stroyed, our crops, both of the field and gardens, must pay the 

 penalty. If the boys must indulge their spirit of liberty by shooting 

 something innocent, it would be better for us husbandmen and gar- 

 deners to subscribe and get some French masters of the arts of do- 

 mestic sports, to teach them how to bring their light artillery to 

 bear upon bull-frogs. It would be a gain to the whole agricultural 

 community, of more national importance than the preservation of 

 the larger birds by the game laws. 



We may be expected to say a word or two here respecting the 

 result of the last five years on pomology in the United States. The 

 facts are so well known that it seems hardly necessary. There has 

 never been a period on either side of the Atlantic, when so much 

 attention has been paid to fruit and fruit culture. The rapid in- 

 crease of nurseries, the enormous sales of fruit-trees, the publication 

 and dissemination of work after work upon fruits and fruit culture, 

 abundantly prove this assertion. The Pomological Congress which 

 held its third session last year in Cincinnati, and which meets again 

 this autumn in Philadelphia, has done much, and will do more to- 

 wards generalizing our pomological knowledge for the country gen- 

 erally. During the last ten years, almost every fine fruit known in 

 Europe has been introduced, and most of them have been proved in 



