46 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 

our more desirable birds’ nests in order to raise his family of four or five, 
while, if any one of these murdered song and insectivorous birds were 
left to mature, it would do twice as much good as a crow ever did. 
Now, if a man wants to make money, that man must study money. 
The prospector is more apt to find earthly gold than the astronomer. In 
other words, if a man concentrates on one line he is more apt to catch 
something on that one hook. 
My friend, Mr. Baty, says if I had had a pet crow to study their habits 
I would know more about them. Let me reply to my friend and kindly 
say, when he has studied them enough to catch them by the thousands 
he will know more about them. Personally I have studied birds more than 
I have my financial obligations and I am glad of it. They have brought 
me closer to God and man. If my life’s study hasn’t taught me some- 
thing about the habits of the crow, how did I catch five hundred and ten 
of those organized murderers at one catch? Will you please think that 
over? I do wish there was nothing but good in the ways of all birds for I 
don’t want to kill any of them, but how can I be humane and protect a 
baby murderer? 
In the spring of 1914 I drove to Point Pelee, a distance of about fifteen 
miles, where my intimate friend, Mr. Forest H. Conover, and I pulled 
three ‘huridred and sixty little red cedar seedlings out of the sand. There 
was none of them over a foot in height. I brought them home and 
planted them in the clay on May 15, 1914. I cultivated them for five 
years and today fully ninety-five per cent of them are over twelve feet 
high and have been bearing fruit for the last three or four years. Now, 
isn’t that “‘interfering with Nature?” This is where the five robins that 
wintered here got their food and, oh say, this winter we have had a 
cardinal added to the songsters and there hasn’t been a day but what 
he has sung for us and he has fairly set me Cardinal crazy, or wise, and is 
going to be the cause of more of my “‘interfering with Nature,” for | am 
going to import some of these winter and summer singers. I am going to 
put a pair in each cage. Then, in March, I will let the male bird out, but 
will feed him on the outside of the cage. Here he will stay, just fluttering 
and singing among the trees, but he will not go far from his mate, who is 
still in captivity. Then, after he has got well acquainted with the whole 
outside proposition, I will let her out and in this way I expect to have the 
whole place cardinal with song. 
Dear readers, don’t let me try it first. Jump in ahead of me. It can be 
done. Yes, if you are privileged to live in the country, you can make 
your home into a little earthly heaven by ‘‘interfering with the balance 
of Nature,” as you call it, but, as I term it, ‘assisting Nature,” for you 
can get seedling trees from our government forestry departments, free 
of charge. If you will plant five hundred of them in the proper place and 
formation around your home, by cultivating them the same as you 
would hills of corn for the first five summers, which will not take you 
