The millions of the insect world are upon us.  The birds fight them for us, and when the birds are numerous and have nestlings to feed, the number of insects they consume is enormous.  They require absolutely nothing at our hands save the privilege of being let alone while they work for us! In fighting the insects, our only allies in nature are the songbirds, woodpeckers, shore-birds, swallows and martins, certain hawks, moles, shrews, bats, and a few other living creatures.  All these wage war at their own expense.  The farmers might just as well lose $8,250,000 through a short apple crop as to pay out that sum in labor and materials in spraying operations.  And yet, fools that we are, we go on slaughtering our friends, and allowing others to slaughter them, under the same brand of fatuous folly that leads the people of Italy to build anew on the smoking sides of Vesuvius, after a dozen generations have been swept away by fire and ashes.

In the next chapter we will consider the work of our friends, The Birds.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS

To-day, from Halifax to Los Angeles, and from Key West to Victoria, a deadly contest is being waged.  The fruit-growers, farmers, forest owners and “park people” are engaged in a struggle with the insect hordes for the possession of the trees, shrubs and crops.  Go out into the open, with your eyes open, and you will see it for yourself.  Millions of dollars are being expended in it.  Look at this exhibit of what is going on around me, at this very moment,—­July 19, 1912: 

The bag insects, in thousands, are devouring the leaves of locust and maple trees.

The elm beetles are trying to devour the elms; and spraying is in progress.

The hickory-bark borers are slaughtering the hickories; and even some park people are neglecting to take the measures necessary to stop it!

The tent caterpillars are being burned.

The aphis (scale insects) are devouring the tops of the white potatoes in the New York University school garden, just as the potato beetle does.

The codling moth larvae are already at work on the apples.

The leaves affected by the witch hazel gall fly are being cut off and burned.

These are merely the most conspicuous of the insect pests that I now see daily.  I am not counting those of second or third-rate importance.

Some of these hordes are being fought with poisonous sprays, some are being killed by hand, and some are being ignored.

In view of the known value of the remaining trees of our country, each woodpecker in the United States is worth twenty dollars in cash.  Each nuthatch, creeper and chickadee is worth from five to ten dollars, according to local circumstances.  You might just as well cut down four twenty-inch trees and let them lie and decay, as to permit one woodpecker to be killed and eaten by an Italian in the North, or a negro in the South.  The downy woodpecker is the relentless enemy of the codling moth, an insect that annually inflicts upon our apple crop damages estimated by the experts of the U.S.  Department of Agriculture at twelve million dollars!