151 
IMPROVEMENT IN AGRICULTURE. 
will become abundant when we take the necessary pains to cul¬ 
tivate it, and will be the most profitable crop for the farmer. 
One of the leading objections to fruit culture is the liability 
of the fruit, and even the tree to be damaged or destroyed by 
insects. A legion of enemies have been discovered to con¬ 
tend with in the shape of bugs, flies and worms, which delight 
to prey on their fruits, flowers, vegetables, plants, shrubs, and 
trees. And this indeed is a formidable obstacle. But for all 
this, we suspect man has only to blame his own short-sighted¬ 
ness, or folly, or perversity. He is destroying the birds, the 
natural protectors of all these things. 
In the admirable arrangements of nature, the feathered song¬ 
sters and game birds are intended to be the most efficient of 
the husbandman’sjhelps. Not only do they in the natural order, 
amuse us with their gambols and entertain our mornings and 
evenings with the inspiring music of joy and the sweet songs of 
love, but they destroy, by feeding on them, the very creatures, 
which, otherwise, ravage our gardens and orchards and vine¬ 
yards, our grain crops, our meadows, pastures and groves. * * 
We would, lastly urge farmers to encourage the culture of 
flowers around their homesteads. It is healthful as well as 
beautifying ; it becomes more imperative, as the wild flowers, 
by the increase of flocks and herds who browse on them, are 
fast dying out in our pastures. “ The flowers which used to 
abound around the marshes, transforming the deadly virus into 
salubrious perfumes and delightful aromas; and the sun flower 
opens its beauteous petals and takes from the atmosphere the 
pestilential vapor, and returns to us its elements recompounded 
in the form of vital air.” 
The water lily, which sometimes covers the whole area of 
the lake, or turbid pool, and skirts the borders of our swamps, 
absorbs the mephitic gases, and renders them innocuous to 
man ; and so of many other beauteous flowers, plants and 
shrubs which formerly adorned the landscape and enlivened the 
wilderness. Shall we not, then, cultivate the flowers? 
Every year should witness some addition to those surround¬ 
ings of our dwellings, whether flower garden, climbing flowers 
