insect destroyed in the spring means the destruction of hundreds, and in some 

 cases thousands, ere the summer is over. 



Government statistics and personal observation show over and over again 

 that the birds are the farmers' best friends, which, in return for their services, 

 ask only protection that they may bring forth more enemies of insects? 



Just how is this protection to be given? Happily the time is passed, or 

 nearly so, when the farmers think that the birds must be destroyed because of 

 the fruit they eat. In comparison with the amount of good they do, the amount 

 of fruit eaten by birds during the summer is an infinitestimal matter — a mighty 

 good form of insurance for the farmer. 



But there is another way in which the birds require protection, and that is 

 protection during their nesting season. Not only should prowling cats be restrained 

 and egg collectors either be made to see the folly of their heartless whims or else 

 be summoned before the law, but provision should be made for the nest. Birds 

 like company. Even the blue jay, usually termed a rascal but at heart a boon 

 companion of the farmer, likes to have his nest near a dwelling. The robin appre- 

 ciates forked sticks placed in trees forh im, and the wren, bluebird, and purple 

 martin enjoy the companionship of man as soon as they learn that he is their 

 friend. 



The best way to get on amicable terms with birds is to build and put up bird- 

 houses and see that such are not destroyed by boys or preyed upon by cats. Put 

 up a single bird-house this summer if you are a skeptic and watch the wren, or 

 bluebird, or purple martin, as it feeds its young, taking note of the kind of feed 

 it uses and the number of trips made per hour. Keep a record of this for a few 

 hours, estimate the good done in a day, in a week, in a month, and in a nesting 

 season, and you will be wiser the followingyear. 



I know one farmer in particular who lost, during one summer, three rows 

 of corn forty rods long. The corn grew next to a fence row heavily sodded with 

 blue grass, which produced swarms of grasshoppers. For the sake of experiment 

 alone, for this farmer was a skeptic, last spring he put up twenty-one bird-houses, 

 placed two rods apart on the fence along the forty rods. The houses were some 

 that he and the boys had made during the winter months, from dry-goods boxes 

 obtained in town. Thirteen of the twenty-one houses were inhabited during the 

 following summer, six by wrens, four by bluebirds, and three by colonies of purple 

 martins. 



The grasshoppers that summer made a rich living for the birds, and when 

 the fall came, that farmer had the satisfaction of gathering twenty-three bushels 

 of corn from the three rows that grew next to the fence, right where there was no 

 com at all the year before. With corn selling at fifty-five cents per bushel, it 

 represented a saving of $12.65 for that year alone, and with the same insurance 

 for the following year with no outlay at all. Does it pay ? Boys, get busy. Get 

 your fathers to figure with you how much corn growing next to a fence row is 

 destroyed by insects, and then see if your fathers will let you put up bird-houses 

 and pay you the difference for the first year. 



547 



