CHAPTER Y. 



PROTECTION OF CROPS. 



The early settlers of New England and Virginia were confronted 

 with the problem of protecting their crops from Crows and blackbirds, 

 and from that time until the present the farmers of the eastern United 

 States have been compelled annually to meet the same enemies to grain. 

 Naturally the first attempt at protection looked toward the extermina- 

 tion of the offending birds, pending which the crops were guarded as 

 well as possible by watchers (ordinarily children) or by 'scarecrows' 

 and other devices intended to frighten the birds away. Precisely the 

 same methods had been pursued for centuries in the Old World and 

 are still in use in our own country. The efforts of the early colonists 

 were comparatively fruitless, owing partly to the small area of culti- 

 vated land and partly to the lack of adequate means of destruction, 

 such as breech-loading guns and cheap i>oisons. To encourage the 

 destruction rewards were offered in many towns, while in others each 

 head of a family was compelled to kill a certain number of Crows or 

 blackbirds yearly; in case of failure a fine was imposed proportioned 

 to the number lacking. "The records of the different towns show that 

 large sums were often paid in premiums for the destruction of Crows 

 and blackbirds. * * * In Norwich, Conn., early in the eighteenth, 

 century a half-penny a head was paid for every blackbird or Crow 

 killed in the town, and though the amount offered was so small, it is 

 stated that it formed a considerable item of expense to the town.'' 1 



That such persecution was not without effect is a matter of history, 

 and the same writer goes on to say: "The traveler Kalm relates that 

 Dr. Franklin told him in 1750 that in consequence of the premiums that 

 had been paid for killing these birds [Crows and blackbirds] in New 

 England they had become so nearly extirpated that they were very 

 rarely seen and in few places only. In consequence of this exterminat- 

 ing warfare on the ' maize thieves,' the worms that preyed upon the 

 grass increased so rapidly that in the summer of 1749 the hay crop was 

 almost wholly cut off by them, the planters being obliged to bring hay 

 from Pennsylvania, and even from England, to Massachusetts to meet 

 the deficiency caused by the worms." It should be noted, however, that 

 the statement as above quoted is not precisely as Kalm wrote it. He 

 was careful not to state that the worms increased as a consequence of 

 killing the birds, but only that the people believed that to be the case. 



1 J. A. Allen, The Perm. Monthly, December, 1876, pp. 941-942. 



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