October 27, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



419 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— The Massachusetts Audubon Society 419 



Forest Policy Recommended by the National Irrigation Congress 420 



Notes on Cultivated Conifers.— IV. (With figure.) C. S. S. 420 



The St. Croix River.— I Mrs. J. H. Rabbins. 421 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. Watson. 422 



Cultural Department: — Notes from Baden-Baden Max Leitchtlin. 424 



Ornamental Grass Beds G. W Oliver. 424 



Grafted Stock for Roses T. D. Hatfield. 425 



Correspondence :— Garden Annuals from the Plant-breeder's Standpoint, 



Wilkelm Miller. 425 



The Forest : — The Forest Reservations of Southern California, 



William M. Tisdalr. 426 



Recent Publications 427 



Notes 42S 



Illustration : — Juniper in Yellowstone National Park, Fig. 54 423 



The Massachusetts Audubon Society. 



THE work of this society, founded three years ago for 

 the protection of wild birds, has been active in circu- 

 lating literature relating to them and in making known the 

 provisions of protective bird laws, and has been conspicu- 

 ously successful. It has now 1,747 life members, 330 

 associates, 20 life associates and 110 local secretaries. 

 Following the lead of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New 

 York, Illinois, Colorado, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and 

 the District of Columbia have organized similar societies, 

 and several other states are preparing to form Audubon 

 societies. During the last year the Massachusetts Society 

 has issued and freely sent out a number of publications 

 relating to the protection of birds and it is now distributing 

 at a trifling cost an illustrated paper by Miss Florence A. 

 Merriam, entitled Hoiv Birds Affect the Farm and Garden. 



In this publication gardeners who have not studied our 

 native birds and their habits will find a great deal of 

 useful information and that many of their preconceived 

 ideas about our familiar birds and their damage to growing 

 crops have been erroneous. Our common and friendly 

 catbird, for example, is often prosecuted because it eats 

 fruit, and although in some parts of the country it is to a 

 certain extent a fruit-eater, one-third of its food is now 

 known to consist of insects which annually destroy a large 

 part of the farmer's and gardener's profits ; even as a fruit- 

 eater it has been demonstrated that it prefers wild fruits to 

 cultivated, most of the complaints of depredations against 

 the catbird coming from those parts of the country where 

 wild fruit is scarce, and actual experiment shows that it 

 prefers red mulberries to cherries and strawberries. The 

 kingbird, having been long accused of destroying honey- 

 bees, a careful examination has been made of 2 1 8 stomachs 

 of this bird. Insects were found to form about ninety per 

 cent of the whole food, but only fourteen of the 218 

 stomachs contained any trace of honeybees, while it was 

 found that it had destroyed a number of the bees' worst 

 enemy, the robber fly, which has been known to kill 140 

 honeybees in a day. The kingbird, too, feeds upon other 

 harmful insects, the gad fly, the Clover-leaf weevil, the 

 destructive Rose chafer, ants and grasshoppers. 



The chickadee is shown to be a voracious feeder on the 

 eggs of the canker-worm; and the crow, although he does 



pull up some corn and is too often maligned and abused, 

 does infinitely more good than harm. Twenty-six per cent 

 of his entire food has been found to consist of insects, most 

 of which are grasshoppers, may-beetles, canker-worms 

 and other species injurious to growing crops. He is a 

 great devourer, too, of field-mice and other harmful rodents, 

 and he is one of the best scavengers. Greater injustice even 

 has been done to hawks and owls which are persecuted un- 

 ceasingly, although a majority of them work night and day 

 to destroy the enemies of the husbandman. There are only 

 three common inland hawks in the United States which do 

 any damage ; these are the goshawk, which is rare in this 

 country, except in winter; Cooper's, or the chicken hawk, 

 which is destructive, especially to doves, and the sharp- 

 shinned hawk, which feeds principally on small birds. The 

 other so-called birds of prey in the United States are mainly 

 beneficial, and their protection and preservation are of 

 extreme importance. Their food consists largely of meadow 

 mice, rabbits, chipmunks, small snakes, grasshoppers, 

 spiders and centipedes. Swainson's hawk is the great 

 grasshopper-eater in some of the western states, and it has 

 been estimated that 300 of these birds have saved in a month 

 sixty tons of produce that grasshoppers would have 

 destroyed. Owls, too, are great destroyers of small rodents, 

 and the story is told of the nest of one pair of barn owls 

 from which 454 skulls were taken, of which 225 were 

 meadow-mice and 179 house-mice. 



Miss Merriam, although she pleads so eloquently and 

 logically for the preservation of our native birds, regards 

 the introduction of the English sparrow into this country 

 as an unmitigated evil. First introduced in 1S50.it has 

 now become established in thirty-five states and territories, 

 and has been shown to interfere with seventy kinds of our 

 native birds, most of which build their nests in the neigh- 

 borhood of houses or in gardens, and are beneficial to the 

 farm and garden. An examination of 522 stomachs of the 

 English sparrow has shown that it feeds principally on 

 wheat, oats and corn, and is but little interested in insects, 

 and that when it does eat insects these are more often 

 beneficial than injurious. It would seem clear then, as 

 Miss Merriam insists, "that the English sparrow should be 

 exterminated, that laws protecting him should be repealed, 

 and that some intelligent systematic action should be taken 

 to rid the United States of his obnoxious presence. Bounty 

 laws cannot do this, for, as has been clearly demonstrated, 

 they do more mischief than can be easily remedied, as 

 money is usually spent on the heads of the valuable birds 

 that have been mistaken for the injurious ones. Small 

 boys also are likely to do more harm than good by destroy- 

 ing the wrong birds, but the work might be effectively done 

 by state boards or commissioners, who should hire trained 

 assistants to destroy the birds in their nests.'' 



The food of a large number of our common native 

 birds is discussed in the pages of this publication, but 

 we have said enough to indicate its value to the farmer 

 and gardener and to show the character of the work 

 which the Massachusetts Audubon Society is doing. 

 Not less successful have been its efforts in preventing the 

 use of the feathers of wild birds in female decoration, and 

 every one becoming a member of the society is expected 

 to agree not to purchase or encourage the use of feathers 

 of wild birds for ornamentation. This, however, does not 

 interfere with the use of ostrich plumes, which are now 

 beautifully dyed for the milliner's trade, the feathers of the 

 different species of barnyard fowls, and the plumage of 

 ducks and peacocks. 



Audubon societies and clubs should be founded in every 

 city and town to excite interest in birds, and all school 

 children should be taught their habits and value. Clubs 

 and societies desiring speakers on the subject of birds and 

 their protection may obtain names by addressing the Sec- 

 retary of the Massachusetts Society, Miss Harriet E. 

 Richards, at the Boston Society of Natural History, Boston, 

 from whom the various publications of the society and 

 suggestions and advice can be obtained. 



