86 



OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



minutes several still had sufficient life to raise half of their body as if 

 in an effort to escape. No more oranges will be admitted from there. 

 Such a pest established in California would soon seriously influence the 

 sale and consumption of our oranges. 



Before concluding, I desire that fruit-growers in the various counties 

 petition their Supervisors to extend to their county horticultural com- 

 missioners all the aid they can; and in counties where no commissioners 

 have been appointed, see that good competent men are immediately 

 selected and appointed to look after importations of trees and plants by 

 rail from east of the " Rockies." In so doing you will protect your own 

 property, and the State Board of Horticulture, through its regulations 

 and the State laws, will extend to you its support. 



BIRDS AS BENEFACTORS TO THE FARMER AND 

 FRUIT-GROWER. 



Essay by W. OTTO EMERSON, of Haywards. 



From an economic point of view, the value of bird life and the rela- 

 tion of the birds to the farmer and fruit-grower cannot be over-estimated. 

 They play the part of an important factor in the preservation of 

 fruit from the depredations of insect pests, and as such should have the 

 fullest protection from orchardists. Their economic value was not 

 investigated to any extent until some ten years ago, when the United 

 States Department of Agriculture formed a Division of Economic 

 Ornithology for the scientific and careful examination of the food of 

 birds. 



Since that time bulletins have been regularly issued on the beneficial 

 birds found throughout the United States. Of the 13,000 species of 

 birds known to science, about 1,000 are known to North America. Of 

 the land birds, there are some 360 which live entirely on insects; 630 

 live more or less on insect life; while nearly 100 depend entirely on such 

 food as the seeds of weeds and wild grain, the year round. 



Birds occupy a secondary place in the scale of life (animals occupying 

 the first) and are most closely related to the reptiles, as we find the 

 earlier types having teeth — representatives of the early Jurassic period. 

 Birds are found at home from pole to pole, equally content whether on 

 ocean wave, in Arctic snows, on arid deserts, or in the dense shade of 

 the tropical forests. 



Every day we find that the birds are preventing the increase of injuri- 

 ous insects and small rodents as well as of harmful plant seeds. Take 

 any one day and consider the amount of food a bird consumes, particu- 

 larly when they have broods of from four to nine, each little mouth 

 taking in several ounces per day. This destruction of injurious mate- 



