4H Liab 
AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 61 
THE VALUE OF BIBDS. 
A PAPER 
READ BEFORE THE Socrety Monpay Evenine, Jury 19, 1869, 
7: 
4 
BY 
THOMAS M. BREWER, M.D. 
Having accepted with many misgivings as to my ability to prepare 
any thing worthy of your consideration, an invitation to read a brief 
paper before the members of our Society, I propose to occupy but a small 
portion of your time with a subject of vital interest to every tiller of 
the soil, whether he call himself horticulturist, fruit culturist, or farmer : 
THE VALUE OF BIRDS. 
I do not propose to treat this subject here to-night, from any senti- 
mental point of view. Much as I may be moved in my own feelings by 
the beauties of song, of plumage, or of character of my friends of the 
feathered tribes, all these partialities — weaknesses, if you will—TI 
shall endeavor to leave severely on one side, and to consider only the 
question of their practical economic value to the husbandman. 
Not that I shall be able to say of any one of the eight hundred diff- 
erent kinds of birds, which inhabit different parts of the United States, 
this bird does just this specified proportion of good, or just this cer- 
tain amount of harm. The man does not live who can approximate, 
with certainjty, such a conclusion, or give you any reliable data for 
such pretended certainties. No one but a charlatan and pretender, 
in the present state of our science, will profess to give, by tables of 
units, the merits or the demerits of even a single species. It is simply 
impossible. In Europe, the case is somewhat different. There, for many 
years, at a large outlay of money and of time, with the support and 
a 
