Save the Birds 



By Charles G. Pliimmer 



Teach conservation and construction rather than waste and destruction. 



I am convinced that agriculture is the very foundation of national greatness. 

 It does not take very great reasoning power to ascertain that while the individual 

 is the unit of society and that the organization of these individuals into groups, 

 families, classes and armies, for instance, must be based upon the healthfulness 

 of the unit as an active agent, that one thing which renders the unit always 

 available in peace or aggressiveness must be the amount and quality of food that 

 is consumed. All of us know that the food must come from those husbandmen 

 who till the soil, garner the grains and conserve them for ultimate individual 

 consumption. It takes money to make the mare go. That same mare won't go 

 unless the money is wisely expended to feed her what she needs to keep her 

 engine going. 



Whether it be the mare that is speeding against the stop-watch for a record 

 or to defeat an opponent, or a big husky lad in the scrimmage line of the varsity 

 team trying to win glory for his college, each must be fed the products of the 

 soil. Unless the rancher produces the grains and grasses for this human and 

 animal consumption there can be no races against Old Father Time, no football 

 games or other athletic activities, no properly rationed army and no national 

 greatness. 



I have noticed always that when crops are a failure in certain portions of 

 our country the insect life of these regions has become a menace because it has 

 preyed upon the products of the farmer's fields and gardens. What has been 

 the result? In some countries real famine has come to the people because of 

 the raids of insect hordes ! I have noted also that often many reasons are given 

 before the real one comes to light. Someone says it is the rain ; still another says 

 it is the heat ; another one admits it was poor seed ; but I have found few indi- 

 viduals who were honest enough to say it was because they had killed off the 

 game birds and the insect eating birds in their community. 



My hat is doffed to those who are so honest and my every eft'ort shall be 

 allied with theirs so long as they are earnestly endeavoring to save and to build 

 in every practical way. 



If there were no other argument for the conservation of our wild bird life 

 than the one demanding economic administration of national affairs concern- 

 ing them, I would be perfectly satisfied that the cause of the birds would win 

 in any court in Christendom. So sure am I of the reasonableness of the growing 

 boys and girls who are about to step out into life to undertake its conquest, that 

 I believe all they need is to have a moment's time given them for consideration 

 of the value of enlistment in the army of conservation and construction, that 

 declares its purpose to be to save rather than to waste, when they will com- 



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