president's address. 37 



Swiss, who absolutely forbade the destruction of any wild birds 

 at all, but we should protect all birds, except those known to be 

 injurious, and schedule these, taking it for granted that all not 

 excepted are being protected for the good of the community. 



It is generally best to obtain one's ends by persuasion rather 

 than by compulsion, and while it may be necessary to restrain 

 the larrikins of the town, it is eminently desirable that the rural 

 population should have the facts brought home to them, and 

 should heartily co-operate with the Government in a work which 

 so nearly concerns themselves. The larger useful birds of the 

 interior are being destroyed wholesale by the poison laid for 

 pests, and the country thus denuded of its native police is being 

 opened up for the awful plagues of caterpillar and locust. We 

 must try and win the farmer and his household, the squatter 

 ■and his riders, to the side of their truest friends and best allies, 

 the birds. 



The adoption of an Arbor and Bird Day in the country schools 

 has met with success in the United States, and is well worth a 

 trial here. For the sake of the land we love we need to train 

 the children to love the tree and the bird. To quote the Secre- 

 tary for Agriculture, Mr. Sterling Morton (1904), "Public 

 sentiment, if properly fostered in the schools, would gain force 

 with the growth and development of our boys and girls, and 

 would become a hundredfold more potent than any law enacted 

 by the State or Congress. I believe such a sentiment can be 

 •developed, so strong and so universal that a respectable woman 

 will be ashamed to be seen with the wing of a wild bird on her 

 bonnet, and an honest boy will be ashamed to own that he ever 

 robbed a nest or wantonly took the life of a bird." So may it be. 



Conclusion. — The Government is the representative of the 

 State, the guardian of the people's heritage. The individual is 

 too apt to consider his private and immediate gain. The 

 Government alone can watch over the permanent interests of the 

 State, can see to it in good time that our resources are not 

 impoverished, that the individual has the usufruct of the land 



