this vegetable; in France it is eaten 

 raw often as not and in obstinate Eng- 

 land they use it for decoration. How- 

 ever, the potato had to make a desper- 

 ate struggle for popularity and for 

 nearly a century, after it was imported 

 and grown in Europe nobody could 

 be persuaded to touch it. Finally Par- 

 mentier gave it a boom that in two 



centuries has not in the least dimin- 

 ished, and twice this little tuber has 

 saved Europe from what promised to 

 be a cruel famine." Whereupon the 

 customer hurried off down the street, 

 hsaving the green-grocer staring at his 

 stock of truck with a refreshing ex- 

 pression of pride and interest. 



BIRDS AND FARMERS. 



IF IT were customary, says a con- 

 temporary, to list such matters 

 after the manner of stock reports, 

 the pages of the daily papers in 

 these days, suggestive of approaching 

 spring, would contain two quotations 

 something like these: "Millinery act- 

 ive," "Audubons aggressive." 



During the cold winter months 

 just passed, while its bird friends were 

 in the South, the Illinois Audubon So- 

 ciety has been working to the end that 

 the women who will flock to the 

 " spring millinery openings " already 

 heralded shall with resolute faces pass 

 by the dainty feather-decked creations, 

 and purchase only those which are 

 flower-crowned or ribbon-decked. The 

 directors of the bird protective society 

 have issued within a day or two a 

 pamphlet compiled by William Butch- 

 er, treasurer of the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union, It will be sent to all 

 the farmers' institutes, and to indi- 

 vidual husbandmen by the hundreds, 

 for the society believes, after having 

 tried many means of teaching the bird- 

 preservation lesson, that the best way 

 to get at the milliners and the women 

 is through the agriculturists. The 



more enthusiastic Audubonites declare 

 than when the farmers read Mr, 

 Butcher's leaflet they will rise in mass 

 and demand that bird killing for milli- 

 nery or any other purpose be stopped. 

 The husbandmen have a yearly crop 

 interest of nearly three billion dollars. 

 The total capital invested in the milli- 

 nery trade is only twenty-five millions. 

 Mr, Butcher says that agriculture loses 

 two hundred million every year be- 

 cause of the attacks of injurious in- 

 sects. As the birds diminish in num- 

 ber, the loss increases, a fact which he 

 declares is proved beyond a peradven- 

 ture. A difference of only one per 

 cent in the value of the farm products 

 means a loss equal to the value of the 

 millinery trade of the country. As a 

 matter of fact, the farmer is the man 

 who is paying the greater part of the 

 millinery bills of the land. 



The Audubon Society, after three 

 years of active work, has come to the 

 conclusion that appeals to the sympa- 

 thies, and the humane feelings of men 

 and women, are not so potent as are 

 plain statements of facts which show 

 how the pocketbook is touched. 



228 



