THE WAUPACA REPUBLICAN

July 12, 1907

 

WAR ON SPARROWS

 

Government Asks People to Help Exterminate Pest.

 

 

            The government is asking people all over the country to make war on the English sparrow and to put up bird houses and bore holes under the eaves of the barns to encourage the swallow.  This measure is made imperative in order that the cotton industry of the United States may not be destroyed.

            All insect-eating birds are of immense value to the farmer and the forester, but it has been discovered by the government bug experts that there is no bird equal to the swallow.  Particularly is this true in the matter of the insect which is destroying the cotton plantations of the South.

            The boll weevil, despite every effort to stay its march, is spreading at the rate of about fifty miles a year, and sooner or later it is said that it is certain to infest the entire cotton producing area – a fact which not only seriously concerns the Southern planter, but in its ultimate consequences affects the well being of the whole country.

            The aid of the North is required, as most of the swallows spend part of the season in the Northern States and in many cases do their nesting there.  The bird is disappearing, however, because the English sparrow harries him and kills his young by the thousands.  Various methods of exterminating the English sparrow are recommended by the department. Most of them consist in the use of poisoned grain.