AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 63 
main unexterminated in his garden, might to advantage be repeated 
here. Such a law applied in Massachusetts, to the canker-worm, and 
rigidly enforced, would not be long in divesting this scourge of nearly 
all its terrors, and very possibly would remove it altogether in time. 
The causes which have led to the extraordinary increase of insects in 
Europe, are principally twofold; one of these, the great increase of 
land under tillage with improved instruments of husbandry, has un- 
doubtedly had something to do with the increase of certain kinds. A 
man who has only a small patch under cultivation finds it hard enough 
to keep the destructive subterranean caterpillars from his vegetables. 
How impossible for him who has hundreds or thousands? Then deep 
ploughing turns under and out of the reach of their natural enemies 
some of the most destructive kinds of larvae. No one thing has con- 
tributed more than this deep ploughing to favor the growth and increase 
of the terrible cockchafer. 
The other cause, and a very prominent one, is the decrease of birds. 
In some cases, this decrease of birds and this increase of insects has 
been cause and effect. The great Frederick of Prussia once nearly extef> 
minated the sparrows in his kingdom, in a fit of royal wrath, because they 
took agrarian liberties with his fruit ; and what was the consequence? The 
caterpillars, which the sparrows had kept in check, having no one now 
to prevent their increase, multiplied at such a fearful rate, that they swept 
before them the foliage, and with the foliage all the fruit also. It is 
said that for two years not a cherry, apple, peach, plum, currant or any 
kind of fruit could be raised in any portion of the kingdom. 
Sensible at last of his mistake, this great king, conquered for the first 
time, in a field where his impotence was but too apparent, yielded to the 
necessity, and expended more money in re-introducing #he sparrow than 
he had wasted in destroying them, but only after the loss to his subjects 
of millions of dollars. Shall such a fact as this be dumb to us? Are 
we, of this country, only to learn the value of birds after we have des- , 
—_—. 
troyed our benefactors? But I will not anticipate. 
From whatever causes it may be, this fearful increase of destructive 
insects and the terrible devastations it has caused, destroying alike the 
vineyards of the wine-grower, the orchards of the cultivator of fruit, the 
gardens of the horticulturist, and the farms and crops of the agricul- 
turist, has naturally caused the deepest alarm and sense of danger to 
whole communities. The governments of France, Switzerland, Prussia, 
/o/ 
