AMERICAN! AGRICULTURIST, 
279 
MORE ABOUT “SPAR1 
This is, perhaps, to some a hackneyed 
theme, yet its importance to the farmer and 
gardener demands a constant recurrence to 
the subject. Only yesterday we saw a gang 
of boys in eager pursuit of a nest of fledg¬ 
lings, and we could but, instinctively almost, 
cry out, “ boys, spare the birds.” Boys of 
a larger growth, however, are more mis¬ 
chievous. Often in coming into the City we 
meet a gang of city loafers, with their dogs 
and guns, sallying forth to destroy the birds 
or frighten them from their habitations in 
the grove upon some quiet farm retreat. 
Did farmers know or appreciate the real 
worth to themselves of the birds thus driven 
away, they would expel the intruding hun¬ 
ters as they would so many horse thieves. 
The value of birds to the farmer, the fruit 
grower, and the gardener is now almost uni¬ 
versally admitted by all observing persons, 
for it is known that insects injurious to ve¬ 
getation increase in proportion to the de¬ 
crease of woodlands and the songsters in¬ 
habiting them. 
Farmers are sometimes at the expense of 
hiring persons to search out and destroy the 
cut and wire-worms from their corn fields, 
the catterpillars from the orchard, borers 
from their peach trees and the various bugs 
and insects which feed upon their vines and 
bushes ; but a few nests of birds will do the 
work cheaper and more effectually. Who has 
not observed the robins following the plow 
or hoe, and wondered at the vast number of 
worms and grubs which they bear to their lit¬ 
tle family in a neighboring tree. Their keen 
sense of hearing aids in detecting the grub 
gnawing at the roots of plants beneath the 
surface. 
It is stated in Anderson’s Recreations that 
“ a cautious observer having found a nest of 
five young Jays, remarked that each of these 
birds, while yet very young, consumed at 
least fifteen full sized grubs of the Anomala 
vitis (a chafer injurious to the vine) in one 
day, and of course would require many more 
of a smaller size. Say that on an average 
they consumed twenty a-piece, these for the 
five make one hundred. Each of the parents 
consume, say fifty; so that the pair and fami¬ 
ly devour two hundred every day. This, in 
three months, amounts to twenty thousand 
in one season. But as the grub continues in 
that state four seasons, this single pair, with 
their family alone, without reckoning their 
descendants after the first year, would des¬ 
troy eighty thousand grubs. Let us suppose 
that the half of these insects, that is, forty 
thousand, are females, and it is known that 
they usually lay about two hundred eggs 
each, it will appear that no less than eight 
millions have been destroyed or prevented 
from being hatched by the labors of a single 
family of Jays.” 
It was a short-sighted policy which led 
people, in many localities, at no very distant 
period, to enact laws calculated to nearly ex¬ 
terminate certain species of birds by award¬ 
ing a bounty or premium for their destruction. 
It is now pretty well established that some 
of these same birds, notwithstanding an oc¬ 
casionally thieving visit to the corn-field or 
orchard, are very useful in exterminating 
vermin. Vincent Rollar, speaking of the 
crow, says : “ it walks between the plants, 
and as soon as it sees one that has begun to 
wither, it approaches it with a joyful spring, 
digs with its sharp bill deep into the ground 
near the plant, and knows so well how to 
seize its prey, that it draws it forth and swal¬ 
lows it almost in the same moment; they do 
the same thing in the meadows which we 
sometimes see almost covered with them.” 
Buffon, in speaking of a certain species of 
grackle, similar to our crow-black bird, says: 
“ The Isle of Bourbon, where these birds 
were unknown, was overrun with locusts 
which had been unfortunately introduced 
from Madagascar; their eggs having been 
imported in the soil with some plants which 
were brought from that island. The Gov¬ 
ernor-General and the Intendant deliberated 
seriously on the means of extirpating these 
noxious insects; and for this purpose, 
caused several pairs of Indian grackle to be 
introduced into the Island. 
This plan promised to succeed; but un¬ 
fortunately, some of the Colonists seeing the 
birds eagerly thrusting their bills into the 
earth of the newly sown fields, imagined 
that they were in quest of the grain, and re¬ 
ported that the birds, instead of proving 
beneficial, would be highly detrimental to 
the country. On the part of the birds it 
was argued that they raked the new-plowed 
grounds, not for the sake of the grain, but 
for the insects, and were therefore bene¬ 
ficial. They were, however, proscribed 
by the Council, and in the space of two 
hours after the sentence was passed 
against them, not a grackle was to be 
found in the island. This prompt execu¬ 
tion was followed by a speedy repentance. 
The locusts gained the ascendancy, and 
the people who only viewed the present re¬ 
gretted the loss of the grackles. Shortly af¬ 
terwards a few pairs were again introduced, 
and their preservation and breeding made a 
State affair ; the laws held out protection to 
them, and the physicians, on their part, de¬ 
clared their flesh to be unwholesome. The 
grackles according multiplied, and the lo¬ 
custs were destroyed.” 
The whippoorwill and nighthawk destroy 
vast numbers of nocturnal insects, including 
the codling moth, an especial enemy of the 
fruit grower. Both of these birds are often 
heard after nightfall in the vicinity of or¬ 
chards, where they seize not only upon the 
millers and larger insects, but by means of 
wide mouths which they keep open when in 
quest of food, they collect many small in¬ 
sects, such as gnats, by constantly darting 
through swarms of them. 
The nighthawk often darts from a distance 
upon large insects, making in its swoop a 
noise not unlike that produced by the twang 
of a viol string. Nutting states that one of 
these birds, on dissection, was found to con¬ 
tain 200 insects in its crop, consisting most¬ 
ly of small beetles. 
We are fully persuaded that no enlighten¬ 
ed farmer, who is convinced of even a tithe 
of the benefit he derives from the friendly 
visits of these cheerful laborers, will permit 
them to be destroyed on his premises ; but 
rather invite them by means of hedges, 
thick shrubs and low trees to make their 
habitations near him, calling him from his 
morning slumbers by a flood of song poured 
in at the open casement, and ever ready with 
their inspiring notes to cheer him in his daily 
toil.—[E d. 
A YANKEE’S VIEWS ON BARN-BUILDING. 
Those who build now are pretty generally 
agreed upon one point; that it is more eco¬ 
nomical to erect one building for the various 
farm purposes, rather than the great num¬ 
ber which are seen so common about old 
establishments. 
Let us look at a few figures, which won't 
lie. A building ten feet square contains one 
thousand cubic feet. Not to speak of the 
roof, the outside presents a surface to the 
weather of four hundred feet. We have, 
then, ten feet inside to four feet outside. 
Take another example. A building twenty 
feet square contains eight thousand cubic 
feet; the outside measures one thousand six 
hundred feet. Here we have five feet in¬ 
side to one foot outside. We will now take 
a building forty feet square. The inside to 
the outside is as ten to one! 
I am aware that the larger structure re¬ 
quires a heavier frame, that is all. The 
boards and shingles are the same in either 
case. I know, too, that the wide roof is 
worn by rain. The objection, however, is 
not of great weight. 
I hold, Mr. Editor, that one part of a large 
barn accommodates another part. It is a 
saving of steps to have your horse near the 
vehicle in which you wish to attach him. 
Why go several rods to a ten-footer, and 
open another set of doors in the wind to 
“ get out the chaise V' W T hat comfort, in re¬ 
turning from market or town-meeting on a 
stormy day, and driving into a snug floor¬ 
way, to untackle and put away horse and 
wagon with ease and expedition. There is 
no difficulty in dispensing with the carriage- 
house ; the barn is the place for all the vehi¬ 
cles, the cellar takes in all the carts and 
coarse wagons—a room at the side of the 
drive-way the lighter vehicles. 
Then what need is there for a separate 
building for tools 1 what place so central as 
an ample room by the side of the floor-way 1 
You start from the barn, usually, to go to 
different parts of the farm, and you return 
thither when the work is done. 
I have thought, Mr. Editor, that portable 
bins for corn might be put up in this large 
tool-room. In the busy seasons of the yean 
corn-bins are apt to get pretty low, so they 
would not be in the way much when the 
tools were most used. I should prefer that 
the bins be where they could be seen too 
often. One might stand a better chance, 
then, of keeping the rats from destroying 
the corn. I have little faith in these out-of- 
the-way places to keep corn ; it is sure to 
waste and injure.—[New England Farmer. 
If a man could have his wishes, he would 
double his troubles. 
