A Word for the Sparrows.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 19, 20 June 1885, Page 2

A Word for the Sparrows.

• : A friend of sparrows thus writes m the Philadelphia Ledger :— Your theorists .claim tl rat, the sparrow is driving away all other birds and destroying our fruits and flowers wholesale. Reasoning from these theories, England ought to be a barren, waste from end to end instead of .boiugia; perfect .garden as Horace Greely described .it, and it ought to have no . other bird but the sparrow; whereas the woods and forests of England are teeming with sweet-singing birds — ike thrush the linet, the robin, the skylark, the nightingale and a host of others that we read not of except m poetry. While I have always been a factory worker, and am one still, I have cultivated a garden m England and m several States m this bountry^r-in New Jersey, m Maine, m Pennsylvania, r and m Maryland. In England the sparrow did two-thirds of the work, m keeping my plants, fruit?, 1 and vegetables free from insects. In this country for the want of sparrows, I , had to do it all myself. The result was that I could produce as much on a rod of ground m England as I could get from three Vbds m this country, m any of .the four States named. Anyone who has lived m countries and tried it can bear iri6 xmt m this. If you don't protect your seed m early spring, before insect lite is developed, the sparrow .will eat some of it. But when the plants come up the sparrow is always hunting for insects. If he digs a hole m your cherry or knocks off one side of your strawberry depend upon it he is after the grub that has taken lodging there. He does not care half so much for fruit as he does for the insect destroying it ; and instead of being an enemy the sparrow is one of your beat friends. .- " . ■