THE ENGLISH SPARROW AND THE HORTICULTURIST 



91 



and their visitors pronounce them superior to any of the 

 same kinds that they can buy at the stores, and now the 

 most suitable packages in which to put them up will be 

 devised, so that the enterprise may be carried out on a 

 larger scale next summer. Thus we will save boxes, 

 crates, express charges and commission, selling to con- 

 sumers direct. Another advantage will be, that when 

 cherries are ripe we can use them, whereas if one rain 

 comes on the Bigarreaus when ripe, they are not fit to 

 ship the following day. 



The amount of miserable stuff sold and used by the 

 people in the cities, called jelly of different fruits, which 

 is flavored by chemicals (many of which are unwhole- 

 some and do not contain any of the fruit they represent), 

 is enormous; but when put up neatly, with a show label, 

 it will take. To break up this nefarious traffic, it is only 

 needful to inform the consumers how they are swindled. 



When one buys a can of strawberries they are usually 

 small, tasteless trash, and show that they were too poor 



to sell. When we preserve this fruit, none but the best 

 berries are used. 



I have alluded to this to induce others to join in the 

 crusade against these frauds. One drawback to our 

 success in accomplishing this is the silly idea that some- 

 thing having a foreign name takes best with so many 

 people ; and until we can convince them that we, here 

 in America, can get up just as good an article of this 

 kind as the English or French, it will be an up-hill busi- 

 ness. There is a lack of true patriotism in too many 

 of our people, and in no way is it shown more than in 

 their going to Europe to spend the millions of dollars 

 that should stay here. They bring back articles for 

 which they pay more than the price for the same goods 

 here, and-pay the duty besides, unless they can smuggle 

 in their foreign purchases — and all this only for the silly 

 purpose of being able to say that they bought these 

 things in Europe. 



Montgomery Co., Mo. S. Miller. 



THE ENGLISH SPARROW AND THE HORTICULTURIST. 



REPORTS FAVORABLE AND OTHERWISE FROM OBSERVANT READER5 



S THE English sparrow a nuisance 

 that should be persecuted with 

 shot-guns, traps and poisons, oris 

 he a comparatively harmless, or 

 even useful fellow whom we might 

 well tolerate among us or even 

 protect? To determine this matter we have invited 

 and still invite reports of actual experience on the 

 part of our observant readers. Our friends must 

 remember that we want no hearsay, only direct 

 evidence such as would be accepted in any court 

 of justice. What have you with your own eyes seen, 

 for or against this bird ? 



A Good Word for the Sparrow. — If the prejudice 

 against the English sparrow is as great in the east as 

 here in Indiana, I am not surprised that The American 

 Garden is severely criticised for its defense of this much- 

 abused bird. I endorse every word said in his favor on 

 page 747. As far as I have studied his habits, I have 

 but one objection to him — his persistence in nesting about 

 our buildings, and thus befouling them ; but for this the 

 remedy is easy, viz., to build better and plainer houses, 

 avoiding all filigree ornamentation that would serve as 

 footholds for this industrious foreigner. The charge of 

 pugnacity is slanderous. While he vigilantly protects 

 his, own domicile, he lives in perfect harmony with our 

 native birds, and I assert, knowingly, that he (/(V.f destroy 

 insects, and I cannot accuse him of poaching on our 

 fruits. He is a happy little scavanger, buffeting all kinds 

 of weather and all seasons of the year in his endeavors 

 to pick up and consume the accumulating filth of our 

 streets and gutters. This wholesale abuse of him is 

 either born of malice, or is the result of prejudice. Rut- 



ledge, an English authority, says of his habits: "When 

 in the country, sparrows feed almost wholly on insects 

 and grain, the former being procured in the spring and 

 early summer, and the latter in autumn and winter." 

 And further, after acknowledging that there is a prejudice 

 against them, even amongst English farmers, he says : 

 " Yet their services in insect-killing are so great as to 

 render them most useful birds to the agriculturist." 

 — W. H. Ragan, Indiana. 



Rather Likes Them. — The American Garden exactly 

 expressed my views in regard to English sparrows. Here 

 we pay a bounty of three cents a head, and boys often 

 make good wages killing them, but I have always insisted 

 that boys prowling around the barns, shooting into the 

 trees, etc., all around one's yards, were worse than the 

 birds. In fact, except that around porches, cornices, 

 etc., they are sometimes nasty, I have never known 

 them to do any harm, and I am very sure that robins, 

 which I always protect as blessings, do far more damage 

 to our fruits than sparrows have ever done. But it is 

 now the fad to curse the sparrows, and perhaps they 

 deserve it, especially as our government and state authori- 

 ties have proved by volumes of observations and statistics 

 that they are destructive to fruits, grain and birds, and 

 possibly to the peace and safety of the country in general. 

 I well remember that years ago, when a teacher, I was 

 almost indignant with my father because he would not 

 cook food for his hogs. It was abundantly and persis- 

 tently proved by the Department of Agriculture, and 

 published by authority, that cooked food was almost or 

 quite twice as valuable as raw, for fattening hogs, etc. 

 Well, we are now just as authoritatively assured that a 

 positive loss results from cooking food for stock. When 

 a boy, I learned from the official and other reports that 



