416 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



JUNB 17, 1840. 



For ihe New England farmer. 1 the expense. The law was enacted for the pood 



~ ^ pleasure of the epicure. It has had a had effect in 



THE DESTRUCTION OF BIRDS. | giving' permission to destroy all except those named 



Mr Editor — You slated sometime ajo in your I in the statnte. If a gang of boys enter a field 



fjaper, that you believed Ihe only efficient remedy | with tiieir guns and the owner or any other person 



renjoiistrated with them, he is told that they kill 



.-igainst the canker-worm was the encouragement of 

 the birds. Several means are now u?ed to secure 

 tViiit trees against the ravages of this destructive 

 insect, at considerable expense, most if not all of 

 which are not fully successful. 'Ihe numerous in- 

 sects that prey upon fruit trees and garden and field 



no birds that the law protects, and the lads blaze 

 away, in the full conviction that they are doing 

 nothing wrong. It is to be regretted that many 

 otherwise respectable persons in the fall, indulge 

 i tliemselves now and then in hunting robins, which 

 vegetables, are the proper food of small birds. It i at that season flock together and aflbrd an easy 

 IS, therefore, reasonable to suppose that il the birds ; (janie. Of the system of things on the earth the 

 be left to increase undisturbed, they will be able in 1 birds constitute a part without which jnankind could 



a few years completely to protect vegetation. At 

 teast, a few cheap remedies, in years particularly 

 t'avorable for the growth of insects, will be suffi- 

 cient. What has always been our conduct towards 

 those useful creatures that Providence has design- 

 ed for the especial benefit of man ? We have al- 

 lowed our boys to hunt them whenever a leisure 

 hour occurred, and to rob their nests whenever they 

 came across them. To destroy them has always 

 been a favorite amusement with worthless, vicious, 

 and idle men. The editor of the Mercantile Jour- 

 nal remarked not long since, tii it he could go as 

 far to kick a fellow who might be seen with a gun 

 on his shoulder traversing the fields in quest of 

 birds, as John Randolph would to kick a sheep. 

 That was an expression of honest indignation, suf. 

 ficienlly mild, yet it would be well if a majority of 

 the people felt likewise. It was formerly the cus- 

 tom on the morning of "Election" day, for all the 

 boys from five to twenty years of age, and some 

 older ones, to " go a hunting," — the large ones to 

 shoot, and the small ones to pick up the game. — 

 Since election has been changed from May to Janu- 

 ary, the practice has, in some places, been partly 

 discontinued, yet at the present time, many thou- 

 sand boys throughout the State, set out annually 

 on the last Wednesday in May, armed for the de- 

 struction of birds. '1 hese will kill from ten to for- 

 ty each, besides wounding many others The or- 

 chards affording the most abundant giiino, are of 

 course scoured first, and the trees lose their protec- 

 tors and receive in return a good supply of shot in 

 their branches. The marauders then betake them- 

 selves to the meadows and woodlands and shoot 

 till they become tired of it. The best singing 

 birds being more easily discovered, amyng such, 

 consequently, the greatest havoc is made. If a 

 person on the morning of old Election day, in a 

 neighborhood where la hunt has been determined 

 upon, listen at sunrise to the rich music of the 

 woodlands and the joyous notes of the orchards, 

 where every tree has its songster, and then on the 

 following morning mark the diminished sounds, he 

 will find the contrast melancholy enough. We 

 have on our statute -book a law protecting from in- 

 jury during a part of the yeai, partridges, snipes, 

 quails, woodcocks, larks, robins and some other 

 birds, which, except the robin, are the least useful 

 of all our birds save for the table, and for that 

 more useful than profitable, — the best sportsmen 

 rarely obtaining enough during a day's hunt, to pay 

 the wages of a common laborer. The partridge is 

 in one respect a noxious creature — preying during 

 the winter on the buds of fruit trees, thus render- 

 ing them barren for the ensuing season. The rob- 

 in is unfortunately fond of cherries, and some per- 

 sons set their boys to shoot them, not reflecting 

 (hat the trees receive more shot than the robins, 

 that might have been frightened away at a quarter 



not in any considerable numbers subsist. If they 

 were exterminated, a general desolation would come 

 over the vegetable world, which the efforts of man 

 could not stay. It is the sun and the rain, the la- 

 bors of the husbandman and the labors of the birds, 

 ihat bring to maturity the fruits of the earth. If 

 the farmers consult their true interests they will 

 find some better amusement during hididays for 

 their boys than the destruction, oftentiu;es in a cru- 

 el manner, of useful creatures, and will secure the 

 enactment of laws deterring others from the like 

 mischief. We have laws punishing with severity 

 the person found guilty of abusing a domestic ani- 

 mal, and the killing and wounding of useful birds 

 and leaving their young to perish with hunoer,should 

 be punished in a like manner. All the birds ask is 

 protection ; their weight is so small as not to en- 

 danger the tenderest twig ; they will work in the 

 orchard, the garden and the field ; their notes are 

 soft, and they will give us music from morning till 

 niiiht, which has been admired by wise and good 

 men in all ages, and which cannot be despised by 

 any person having a claim to virtue or taste. W. 



young, who would probably have recovered had it 

 not been for her peculiar situation. The violent 

 remedies resorted to relieved her of the spasmodic 

 affections, but brought on an abortion of which 

 she (lied. The three hogs were worth at least $25, 

 which was the price I paid for my knowledge. 



One reason why injury does not often follow the 

 use of such liquor as is strongly impregnated with 

 saltpetre is, that in families the amount taken is 

 not ordinarily enough to produce Sjiasms, which 

 are occasioned by a stoppage of the bowels : but I 

 am told it is extremely dangerous to give such liq- 

 uor to small pigs, even in the siuallest quantity. 

 The remedies resorted to in such diseases are, cut- 

 ting open the flesh of the nrck between the shoul- 

 ders to the depth of more than an inch, and apply- 

 ing fine salt, large doses of castor oil, of gin, and 

 thoroughwort tea, as strong as it can be made. But 

 " an ounce of preventive is better than a pound of 

 cure," and therefore those persons who have board- 

 ing establishments in which large quantities of salt- 

 petred meat are used, will do well to be cautious 

 in the use of the liquor. S. OSGOOD. 



DELETERIOUS QUALIIIES OF SALTPE- 

 TRE LIQUOR. 



Springfield^ June 5, 1840. 

 To the Editor of the New England Farmer : 



It is often said that "bought wit is best if not 

 bought too dear;" but lest some of your subscri- 

 bers should pay as dear as I have for knowledge, I 

 beg leave to communicate the following fact for 

 their benefit. I do not know but it may be known 

 to some of your readers that the liquor in which 

 saltpetred meat is boiled will kill hogs, if taken 

 inconsiderable quantities; but I have communi- 

 cated the fact to some to whom it was new. One 

 of my neighbors engnged to provide a dinner for a 

 largo company on the last Fourth of July. As he 

 had no convenient place in his own kitchen to boil 

 a large quantity of meat, he requested the privilege 

 of using a large boiler of ours, which is commonly 

 used for washing. The amount boiled was about 

 1.50 pounds, consisting of bacon and beef cured 

 with saltpetre. He removed all the grease which 

 rose on the top and left the liquor in the boiler, 

 which was thrown into the swill barrel and given to 

 six hogs weighing about 1.50 lbs. each. The next 

 morning I was informed that the hogs were sick. 

 The four largest, who probably took most of the 

 liquor, were in dreadful spasms and one died before 

 any remedies could be used. I immediately sent 

 for a man acquainted with diseases in animals, who 

 asked as soon as he saw them if they had taken 

 liquor in which saltpetred meat was boiled. He 

 resorted to the usual methods of cure in such cases, 

 but it was too late to save two of the largest which 

 remained. One was a sow far advanced with 



From the Albany Cultivator. 



SALTPETRE IN MEAT. 



Messrs Gaylord i,- Tucker : — In the 19th number 

 of the last volume of the Cultivator, there appeared 

 a communication on the use of saltpetre in curing 

 meat; and the following reason was assigned for 

 abandoning its use, viz : "It ought to be known 

 that saltpetre absorbed by the meat, is nitric acid, 

 or aqua forlis — a deadly poison, whereby our salt 

 meat becomes unpalatable and pernicious." A suf- 

 ficient answer to which is found in the fact, that 

 one of the constituents of common salt is muriatic 

 acid, as deadly a poison as the niiric acid of the 

 saltpetre. And we might with as much propriety 

 say, that the salt absoibed by the meat is muriatic 

 acid, as to say that the saltpetre is nitric acid or 

 aqua fortis : theiefore, the objection applies with 

 as much force and truth to the use of the one as 

 the other. 



Saltpetre is the product of a chemical union be- 

 tween niiric acid and potassa, (potash)' — and salt is 

 the product of a like union between muriatic acid 

 and soda — and in these, as in all other cases of 

 chemical combination, the substances combining 

 not only lose their properties, but the substances 

 produced generally possess properties entirely dif- 

 ferent — frequently the very opposite of those of 

 either of their constituents. From which it fol- 

 lows, that a perfectly innocent compound may be 

 produced by the combination of two noiious sub- 

 stances — or a noxious compound by the combina- 

 tion of two innocent substances: and it is very im- 

 proper and well caculated to mislead, to designate 

 a compound substance by the name of either of its 

 constituents, as in the conimunicatii'n referred to, 

 in which nitric acid and saltpetre are several times 

 used as if they were but different names for the 

 same thing. 



Some persons think a small quantity of saltpetre 

 very beneficial to their meat — others think it use- 

 less: the former need not be frightened from its 

 use by the fear of being poisoned with aqua fortis, 

 nor the latter deterred from trying it. J. 



Cultivating the earth without well manuring it in- 

 duces two great evils: it impoverishes both the 

 husbandman and the soil. 



