178 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[May, 
of food. If grain, or other food, is kept within 
reach, they devour no more than other fowls that 
mature as rapidly. If in suitable quarters, and well 
fed, they get most of their growth in four months, 
and can be marketed in August at the watering 
places when prices are highest. The impression 
that a pond, or brook, is necessary to raise the 
ducklings, is erroneous. They need no more water 
than chickens until they are three months old, and 
are better off without any pond to swim in. We 
have raised fifty in a season in a quarter-acre yard, 
and found them no more troublesome than chickens. 
The best mothers are hens, and we prefer the 
Asiatic fowls, either Cochins or Brahmas. A hen 
of these breeds will cover nine or ten eggs. We 
have found an old barrel, with a board at the end, 
to fasten the bird upon her nest, as good as a more 
expensive coop. They are let oil regularly at noon 
every day, when they have a half hour’s range, 
green food, grain, and water. The young ducks 
are fed with some fresh animal food, and coarse 
Indian meal scalded, and this, varied with chopped 
cabbage, turnips, worms, and liver, is the staple 
food until they are three months old. They do 
much better on soft food than on grain.—The para¬ 
dise of ducks is a location on a tide water stream 
or cove, where there is a constant succession of 
sea-food with every tide. If furnished with a little 
house, or pen, upon the shore, and a variety of 
grain, they will come home regularly every night, 
and lead an orderly life. The eggs are usually laid 
at night, or early in the morning, and very few of 
them need be lost. Of the four varieties, Rouen, 
Aylesbury, Cayuga, and Pekin, we give the prefer- 
auce to the last for size, early maturity, abundance 
of eggs, hardiness, and domestic habits. 
A Plan for Filling a Wash-out. 
A correspondent in Georgia asks how to All wash¬ 
outs, which are so frequent upon hillsides in the 
Southern States as 
well as elsewhere. 
Having had occasion 
to fill some of these 
unsightly gulleys, we 
adopted the following 
plan. Pig. 1 represents 
a very usual form of 
these hollows, which 
are to be first partly filled with stone or brush gath¬ 
ered from the most convenient point. If brush is 
used, it should be well packed and trodden down ; if 
stone is used, the large ones should be thrown into 
the bottom, and the top covered with small ones. 
When the hollow is filled sufficiently with these 
materials, the ground is plowed from each side 
towards the center, gradually moving the earth un¬ 
til a gentle slope is made, as at figure 2 ; the dotted 
line shows the original surface of the ground. 
Mortality Among Turkeys.—A correspondent 
from Port Collins, Col., complains of great mor¬ 
tality among his turkeys. “ They commenced dy¬ 
ing off without anything, apparently, ailing them. 
They would go to roost at night, apparently in the 
best of health, and in the morning three or four, 
and sometimes eight or ten, would be lying under 
the roosts dead. Others would droop an hour or 
two, and then fait over. They had access to good 
water, and wheat and rye stubble, and were gaining 
very fast, and in superb condition. Of my flock of 
seventy-five, only five are now living. W r hat was 
the matter? ”—It is difficult, on these data, to state 
the exact cause, or to give a remedy. It is proba¬ 
ble, however, that the cause of death was gorging 
with grain, found in the stubble, in addition to the 
insects which we suppose to be abundant in that 
region. Without the stubble they might have es¬ 
caped any harm. Our best turkey raisers feed 
about 4 o’clock in the P. M., to encourage the 
flocks to come home early, and give time for di¬ 
gestion before they go to roost. This regular sup¬ 
ply prevents over-feeding, and the turkey crop is, 
with Eastern farmers, as sure as any other. 
A Good Dog Law in Connecticut. 
In Connecticut there were four deaths from hy¬ 
drophobia in 1876, seven in 1877, and two already 
this year. Among the above were several promi¬ 
nent citizens. There has been paid annually, $12,000 
to $15,000, or more, for sheep killed by dogs, while 
thousands of others have been maimed but not 
paid for. Though many parts of the State are 
specially adapted to raising sheep profitably, the 
fear of loss from dogs has nearly put an end to this 
industry. The above condition of things led the 
State Legislature, recently adjourned, to pass, with 
great unanimity, a striugent dog law, of which the 
principal provisions are the following: 
Every dog kept must be registered on or before 
May 1st, of each year, and $2,15 paid therefor, to 
the Town Clerk for each male dog, and $6.15 for 
each female dog. Every dog must constantly wear 
around the neck a collar distinctly marked with the 
register number and the owner’s name.—Every dog 
not so licensed and collared, is to be killed, and $1 
bounty is paid for the killing.—Any person keeping 
an unregistered dog may be fined $7, or imprisoned 
30 days, or both ; and it is made the duty of Grand 
Jurors and all other prosecuting officers, to prose¬ 
cute any violation of this act.—All damages done by 
dogs to sheep or lambs, or cattle, are to be paid for 
by the town, and collected in full from the owners 
of the dogs. Any person killing a registered dog, 
unless such killing be justifiable for the protection 
of life or property, is liable for the value of the 
dog, as established by competent evidence, and to 
a fine not exceeding $7, or imprisonment not ex¬ 
ceeding 30 days, or both. 
The European Sparrow—Is It a Friend 
or an Enemy of the Horticulturist 
and Farmer? 
BY DR. n. A. HAGEN, PROFESSOR AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
[But a few years ago, European Sparrows were 
hailed as the greatest boon to fruit growers, and 
were eagerly purchased from importers at $4 the 
pair. Within the past two or three years the bird 
lias been as positively decried, as it was before ex¬ 
travagantly praised. The Sparrow controversy has 
been especially active in Boston and vicinity, and 
the literature, pro and con, is already voluminous. 
A decision adverse to the Sparrow, given by the 
“Nuttall Club,” an association of young ornithol¬ 
ogists at Cambridge, Mass., has induced Doct. 
Hagen to enter his protest. Doct. LI. is one of our 
highest authorities in Natural History, and is 
connected with the “ Museum of Comparative 
Anatomy ” (founded by Agassiz) as entomologist. 
He addressed his defence of the Sparrow to our 
first ornithologist, Prof. S. F. Baird, of the Smith¬ 
sonian Institution, who forwards it to us with this 
remark : “ It is time, I think, that something should 
be said in defence of the Sparrow against the 
numerous attacks that have been made upon it. 
Without pretending to form a judgment in the 
matter, I am anxious to see both sides represented. 
The leading Natural History weeklies have done 
little else than abuse the Sparrow, and I would like 
to see Doct. Hagen’s protest placed on record.”— 
We here give the article referred to.— Ed.] 
The decisions of the “ Nuttall Club,” of which a 
report is given in No. 18 of the “New York 
Country,” are based upon observations contradict¬ 
ing in several points the older ones, which are ac¬ 
cepted by science, in the most decided manner. It 
appears by the report, that the Club either had no 
knowledge of these earlier observations, covering 
a space of more than a century, and sustained by 
ornithologists of well known reputation, or that it 
did not deem it worth while to compare its own ob¬ 
servations with the earlier ones, which ought to 
have been done to fulfill the well knowm demands 
of science. The Sparrow literature is large, and 
opinions during the past century have considerably 
changed, until the final decision is most decidedly 
favorable to its value. 
I will select only three authors, who are orni¬ 
thologists, each one an authority for the economic 
natural history of his time, covering a space of a 
hundred years, and showing the gradual progress of 
the opinion as to the value of the Sparrow’. 
Mr. T. F. Bock, in 1784, considered the Sparrow 
simply as a nuisance, so injurious and obnoxious, 
he demanded that the Legislature should be applied 
to for its destruction ; this was carried out several 
times with such a pernicious effect, that the Sparrow 
had to be introduced again. It is not necessary to 
give Mr. Bock’s decisions, as they are exactly 
identical—the carnivorous and murderous habits 
excepted—with those of the Nuttall Club in 1878. 
Mr. F. M. Bechstein, in 1795, says : “The food of 
the Sparrow’, insects and grains, indicates him to 
be beneficial as well as injurious. In spring, he 
visits all fruit trees, collects caterpillars from the 
leaves and flowers, and kills an exceedingly large 
number of May-beetles to feed his young. In sum¬ 
mer, he lives on the seeds of lettuce and of spinach, 
on young peas, cherries, grapes, and berries. In 
the fall, he goes into the grainfield and eats a large 
quantity of ripening or ripe grain. The greatest 
benefit he confers is in the destruction of innumer¬ 
able noxious insects, May-beetles, pea-grubs, cater¬ 
pillars, and grasshoppers, to feed his young.” The 
Sparrow is from this not so injurious as he was de¬ 
clared to be in former times, and upon the whole is 
certainly more beneficial than harmful. I know 
towns where Sparrows were killed as injurious, but 
the fruit trees there never had fruit, though other 
towms in the neighborhood had plenty of it. The 
cause was, that the caterpillars were not killed by 
the Sparrows. Through loss came wisdom ; the 
Sparrows were again introduced, and it was found 
more profitable to protect the fruit trees and vines 
against their depredation by simple artificial means. 
Dr. C. W. L. Gloger, in 1858, says : “The former¬ 
ly much-abused Sparrow is often an impudent fel¬ 
low, but he eats insects as long as they are to be 
found. With some predilection, he collects leaf- 
lice from the buds of shrubs, and trees, and feeds 
his young with caterpillars. Certainly the Sparrow 
merits well the few cherries and grapes W'bicli he 
steals, as he protects so many other fruits, which 
he leaves untouched. In former times people were 
shortsighted enough to hunt and to kill the Sparrow; 
now opinion has changed. All intelligent horti¬ 
culturists especially, will never persecute the Spar¬ 
row.” Among the large number of books on horti¬ 
culture, there is not one, which even excuses, much 
less commends,its destruction. If the Sparrows were 
injurious, they would be much more so for horti¬ 
culturists than for farmers. The stomach of the 
Sparrow, in fall or winter, is rounded with seeds of 
weeds, which is certainly more than an equivalent 
for the grain stolen in summer. 
These opinions are based upon observations made 
through a century, and supported by authors of 
acknowledged reputation, while the decisions of the 
“Nuttall Club” are given after only the observa¬ 
tions of a few years. I would only object to a 
few observations given in the report, the rest 
being sufficiently answered by the above extracts. 
The report states “the Sparrows to be carnivor¬ 
ous birds, eagerly destroying and devouring eggs, 
and newly-hatched young of other birds.” It is 
well known to every naturalist, what science under¬ 
stands by the term “carnivorous birds,” and it is 
well know’ll that Sparrows do not belong to them. 
This term, as applied to the Sparrow’, is decidedly 
out of place in the report of an Ornithological’ 
Club. The other part of the quotation reminds me 
of a quibble a century old. It was said that 
“ the Sparrow invades the nests of pigeons, to cut 
open the crop of the young ones, and to feed up¬ 
on the grain contained in them —when he needs it." 
Of course it was understood that he never needed it. 
The report says further, “ The decided preference 
