Show M-I-H M H M I-M-M-I- Stupidity Street H 4 I 1 t 1 LI 1 1 E t t t I I 1 E Is I VINCY PRESTON LOOPS It looks as if I wouldn't have my any beet crop this year year ear or hay eIther cither the grass hoppers arc are just cleaning e out is as fast as it starts Some places not a beet has lived long enough to put out second elves complained Mr bar Joslyn a n neighbor What do you suppo suppose e makes them themo 0 s o bad this year I asked worse than usual on my place too Guess its it's the had weather weather had a mIld winter this year year-no year no snow sno he had explained I knew better than to argue wIth the hard headed old rascal but I sus- sus suspected suspected sus suspected why hy the hoppers v were ere bad I meant to show him something he wouldn't forget He lIe had been to the county seat eat a short time before and brought home a generous alIo allowance ance of the prepared prepare d poison to scatter around the e dog holes for the marmots were as a s troublesome as athe hoppers He lie ha had d busied himself for several hours hour s dumping the little piles of poisons pOIsoned d gram grain along the edges of his beet and an d alfalfa fields An errand had taken me past hi hIS s fields fells a a little later and to mv my sur- sur sur prise I had found numbers of of dead bIrds lying along the edges of the grackles fields and meadow larks mostly As I stopped supped in m surprise the explanatIon had come to Farmer me-Farmer me Joslyn's prairie dog poison pOlson And Just Justat justat justat at breeding time toot tootI too I had gathered up a handful of the bIrds and earned carried them home Now I arranged them in m a basket and called call call- called called edon ed on Mr Joslyn You spoke of the damage the hop hop- hoppers hoppers hoppers pers are doing to your crops Heres Here's the basket rea reason on and I unco uncovered ered the bas bas- bas ket and held it out for him to see ee that got to do with Ith It l he ithe aske asked in m amazement Just this You scattered dog poison all around your fields Its It's early eally in m the season and the birds dont don't find as many bugs as they do later latel Then too its it's nesting time and all the birds are arc hunting food for a nest nest- ful ful of hungry youngsters So they cat ea t the poisoned grain gram and the carry few fe insects to then young Heres Here's the result I still held them out for foi him to study Besides do you YOU ou know that the meadow lal lark laik k eats the alfalfa weevIl whIch is so bad here that your alfalfa a IS quarantined and you vou ou cant can't shIp It from the county As many as one hundred onehundred larvae lanae of the alfalfa weevil h hire he e been found in m the stomach of o f one meadow meado l lark rk Here are re two 0 dea dead d larks I thrust them still forth farther toward hIm I wanted him thoroughly to understand As he made no answer I w went ent on Do you know that at atthe atthe atthe the time when the tho hopper is the most plent plentiful ul the meadow larks eats cats very little el else e 1 The grackle though largely a grain gram eating three bIrd bird three of them dead here in m the dur basket basket dur during ing the breeding season just now when your beets are young and easIly injured by insects feeds its young almost entirely upon bugs andin and in m injurious furious jurious insects 1 He was as still grazing at my basket but interrupted my orbon to ask Well then if that's so and I spose how in m am I going to get rId of the prairie dogs for they're as bad as the hoppers 1 Just as the railroad did I promptly promptly replied They issued orders to spread prairie dog poison pOlson AROUND the burrows and when one woman heard of it she wrote a letter to the general superintendent asking if the pOIson couldn't be put just inside the burrow instead of around outside that the birds might be spared The first orders were countermanded and new instructions issued according to her he r suggestIOn and there were no poison poison- poisoned ed cd birds along the tracks I Im sure much obliged to you for forI I telling me I wouldn't have done dons It If Id I'd known Id I'd no idea it would wor that way but I don dont t know much about birds anyway |