A PLEA FOR THE SPARROWS.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5039, 7 March 1885, Page 4

A PLEA FOR THE SPARROWS.

The farmers"in many parts of the colony have looked upon tlie introduction of sparrows as rather a curse than a blessing. In America, also, the English sparrow has many detractors, but the following paragraph from the Philadelphia Ledger will show that he has also some friends:—- ---" Your theorits claim that the sparrow is driving away all other birds and destroy" ing our fruits - and flowers wholesale. Seasoning from these theories England ought to be ft barren waste from end to end instead of a perfect garden, as Horhce Greely described it, and have no othe»bird but tho sparrow, whereas the woods and forests of England are teeming with sweet singing birds—the thrush, . the linnet, the robin, the skylark, the nightingale, and a host of others that we read not of except in poetry. While I have always been a factory worker, and am one still. I have cultivated a garden in England and in several States in the country—in Hew Jersey, in Mju'ne, in Pennsylvania, and in Maryland. In England the sparrow did two-thirds of the work in keeping my plauts, fruits, and vegetables free from insects. In this country, .for want of the sparrow, I had to do it all myself. The result was I could produce as much on a rod of ground in England as I could get from three rods in this country, in any of the four States named. Anyone who has lived in both countrias and tried it, can bear me out in this. If you don't protect your seed in early spring, before insect life 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 in your strawberry depend upon it he is after the grub that has taken lodgings there. He does not care half so much for your fruit as he does for the insect destroying it; instead of being an enemy the sparrow is one of your best friends.