20 6 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
street and so should be made as conspicuous as pos- 
sible. A lady, in front of whose house a large tele- 
phone polehad just been erected, was complaining to 
a gentleman with whom she happened to be talking 
of the outrage that had just been committed by the 
telephone people in putting such an ugly object in 
front of her window. The man to whom she was 
talking, much to her surprise, was a stockholder in 
the company, and hastened to assure her that the 
pole would be painted, and be quite unobjectionable. 
The next day the painters came along, coloring the 
lower six feet of the pole black, and the rest of it 
white. It is necessary, of course, to have all sorts 
of wires, but let us hope that they will soon be 
placed underground. Perhaps each one can do 
something to bring about such a result by his influ- 
ence on public sentiment. 
Building lines in residence districts are generally 
placed at some distance from the street itself, but as 
their location affects the general appearance of the 
thoroughfare as much as do the other lines referred 
to, they will be briefly mentioned here. Such lines 
furnish a protection to all who build homes. Every 
residence should have a certain seclusion, a quiet- 
ness, that will give rest and comfort to its inmates. 
The farther the building line is removed from the 
street, the greater will this seclusion be. 
Still other lines which might be considered are 
those of fences and hedges. A fence helps to give 
the seclusion, the quietness, the freedom from in- 
trusion, so desirable for one’s home, but at the 
same time it is apt to have the ugliness so objec- 
tionable in the case of the telephone poles, and it 
often seems exclusive in an offensive way. A hedge 
is, perhaps, an improvement on the fence, but, as 
it is composed of trees or shrubs, its consideration 
may very properly be deferred until we come to 
street planting. O. C. Sirnonds. 
RELATION OF BIRDS TO HORTICULTURE. 
Prof. Otto Lugger of the Minnesota State Experi- 
ment Station has been for some time making investiga- 
tions on the subject of the relation of birds to horticul- 
ture in the way of what percentage of the food of in- 
sectivorous birds consists of injurious insects. It is 
claimed that such insect eating birds are generally bene- 
ficial to the gardener and farmer. His investigations, 
however, go to show that the insectiverous birds do not 
discriminate between noxious and harmless insects, sim- 
ply interesting themselves in obtaining food in the easi- 
est manner. 
In the course of an interesting article in The Minne- 
sota Horticulturist Prof. Lugger says: “I do not wish to 
say that insectivorous birds are not beneficial, because 
at the present time we know too little about it. Many 
dissections have to be made, and have to be made at all 
times of the summer, to give us a true insight into the food 
habits of the birds. We know already that a bird may 
be beneficial in the spring and destructive in the fall. 
We also know that a bird may be of great benefit to 
horticulturists in one locality and be the opposite in an- 
other one. Until we know more about such things it is 
wise to give all birds the benefit of the doubt, especially 
as birds are the aesthetic features of our fields and for- 
ests, and will deserve our protection on account of their 
songs and pleasing forms and habits.” 
During the past two summers the professor devoted 
considerable attention to the house wren, a useful bird, 
to attract which to his house he provided a number of 
bird houses, and fastened them to neighboring oak trees. 
These pottery bird houses had an opening only large 
enough for the wren itself to prevent the entrance of 
larger birds. Eleven of these houses were occupied bv 
as many pairs of wrens, and each pair produced at least 
two broods of five birds each, so that the eleven pairs 
of birds had to provide food for themselves and no 
young ones. It was noted that the young birds refused 
every kind of food but insects. The results of the ob- 
seivations on these birds are given in the article above, 
referred to as follows: “The food consumed by the first 
brood consisted mainly of small beetles, young grass- 
hoppers, crickets and the caterpillar half an inch and 
more in length, so common among grass The second 
brood was fed almost entirely with small caterpillxrs and 
the larvae of sawflies. The old birds are most active in 
providing food for their young from five to nine in the 
morning and from four to seven in the afternoon, at 
which time each one makes at least one trip every five 
minutes. A calculation based upon these facts shows 
that at least 1,875 insects are required for the five young 
birds of each generation, or the amazing number of 4r,- 
250 insects had to be brought to the nests of the young 
birds raised in these bird houses. This does not in- 
clude, however, the food consumed by the twenty-two 
adults nor that consumed by the young after they had 
left the nest, but were still found in the vicinity. 
Now, the question arises, What was the relation of 
this large number of insects to the cultivated plants 
grown in the vicinity of the house? As I did not want 
to kill my pets I could only study the insects brought to 
the nest by means of a powerful field glass and also 
watch the birds while searching for insects in the gar- 
den. The numeious small and black insects consumed 
by the first brood of wrens were mainly ground-beetles 
and small bugs. None of them can be said to be in- 
jurious, though some of the ground-beetles are suspected 
of eating the pollen and immature seed of grasses. Of 
course the grasshoppers, crickets and green caterpillars 
are all injurious insects; hence, the first brood of wrens 
was certainly much more beneficial than injurious. The 
second brood, consuming nothing but caterpillars and 
the larvae of sawflies, was decidedly beneficial. My six 
rows of currants and gooseberries were badly infested 
with the destructive sawflies, and it became necessary 
early in the season to spray with hellebore. Later, how- 
ever, I noticed that the wrens were very active among 
the bushes, and, carefully watching their actions, 1 
soon discovered that they were searching for the larvae 
of the sawflies that had hatched since the application of 
the hellebore. Their good work was shown by the fact 
that all the larvae were carried off as soon as they 
hatched from the egg and became large enough to be 
seen.” 
