Now I do not infer from this fact that insect ravages are _wholly_ due to our abuse and exhaustion of the soil. I presume that Wheat and other crops would be devastated by insects if there were no slovenly, niggard, exhausting tillage. But I do firmly hold that at least half our losses by insects would be precluded if our fields were habitually kept in better heart by deep culture, liberal fertilizing, and a judicious rotation of crops. I heard little of insect ravages in the wheat-fields of Western New-York throughout the first thirty years of this century; but, when crop after crop of Wheat had been taken from the same fields until they had been well nigh exhausted of their Wheat-forming elements, we began to hear of the desolation wrought by insects; and those ravages increased in magnitude until Wheat-culture had to be abandoned for years. I believe that we should have heard little of insects had Wheat been grown on those fields but one year in three since their redemption from the primal forest.
But, whatever might once have been, the Philistines are upon us. We are doomed, for at least a generation, to wage a relentless war against insects multiplied beyond reason by the neglect and short-comings of our predecessors. We are in like condition with the inhabitants of the British isles a thousand years ago, whose forefathers had so long endured and so unskillfully resisted invasion and spoliation by the Northmen that they had come to be regarded as the sea-kings' natural prey. For generations, it has been customary hereabout to slaughter without remorse the birds, and let caterpillars, worms, grasshoppers, etc., multiply and ravage unresisted. We must pay for past errors by present loss and years of extra effort. And, precisely because the task is so arduous, we ought to lose no time in addressing ourselves to its execution.
The first step to be taken is very simple. Let every farmer who realizes the importance and beneficence of Birds teach his own children and hirelings that, except the Hawk, they are to be spared, protected, kindly treated, and (when necessary) fed. They are to be valued and cherished as the voluntary police of our fields and gardens, constantly employed in fighting our battles against our ruthless foes. The boy who robs a bird's nest is robbing the farmer of a part of his crops. He who traverses a farm shooting and mangling its feathered sentinels diminishes its future product of Grain and nearly destroys that of Fruit. The farmer might as well consent that any strolling ruffian should shoot his Horses or Cattle as his Birds. Begin at home to make this truth felt and respected, and it will be the easier to impress it also on your neighbors.