| Show Out of Doors in the West Sketches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain Plateau Edited by J. H. Professor of Nature Study in the University of Utah I. Something About Value of Birds to Farms and I. CONSERVING THE Much is heard nowadays about of natural What is the meaning of this favorite Primer of published by the government for free distribution to the United States Department of D. if you desire a explains in full the forestry aspects of a situation about which people in the ought to Without repeating anything said in that excellent let usi learn something of the conservation of the An army engineer once remarked that the western forest fires were filling the Missouri with dissolved Rocky and that unless the erosion could be boats will hardly find room to enter the Amos A. Mills of the reclamation service explains this remark by showing that the soil on ten thousand of the burned heights is rapidly and is being carried into the Mills shows just what happens on the watershed where the St. Vrain makes its start for the The river drains two one of which is still covered by a the other swept to by a forest An hour after a rain the stream from the burned area had already risen to many times its usual and the dark water was thick with mud and The stream from the forested area wras only a trifle higher than usual and was almost clear and The rain was being absorbed by the but it was being shed by the burned and was carrying the soil with What Trees Up the the two inches of rain had fallen had soaked to an average depth of eight inches into the thick carpet of litter under the great almost two centuries which stand At this place it seemed as if the forest were long as I my countless roots shall clutch and clasp the soil like eagles' claws and hold it on these I shall add to this soil by annually I shall heave it with my growing loosen and cover it with litter and maintain a surface that will catch the rain and so delay and distribute these waters that at the foot of my slope perennial springs will ever flow quietly toward the Destroy and on stormy days the waters may wash away the unanchored soil as they run down the to form a destructive flood in the home-dotted valley What has happened in several Utah towns Ephraim where the trees and brush have been destroyed from the Floods cover the towns with leaving the hillsides barren and The Mud All over the barren slopes of every burned where the fire-killed trees stand like so many the gentle slopes are covered at every rain by a filmy sheet of clear which soon separates into tattered torrents and takes on the color of the soil that it carries These unite and grow in each from the others by ridges that widen and gullies that Most of the soil and fine the eroded is carried Little landslides are frequent in such gullies are washed in the soil and a torrent of water laden with mud is sweeping down every hillside after every carried on by various channels into the canyon As one comes up the valleys of Utah and notes the mud dumps and deposits of he may truly lies the lineal descendant of Mount here the greater part of a Wasatch A flood took this from a terraced mountain and this from farms in sunny canyon A mud flat itself might thoughtless lumberman who caused my downfall is now in congress urging river and the shallow water at the big bend of a stream could once deep channel was filled with soil from a fire-scourged The minister whose vacation fire caused this ruin is now a missionary among the The Ruin of The ruin of vast areas of hill land from this cause r is already a fact in many of the southern where the great as it is less noticeable because of the abundant vegetation of many of the But in the Rocky mountain region it is the mountains alone r that are forest Shall desolation come upon west Or will practical conservation not find some way of saving what little remains of the and also restore to utility and beauty what has already been That depends mainly upon whether or not the next generation shall be taught practical nature The Value of William L. Finley of the National Association of Audubon Societies stated recently at that the real wealth of the country is based upon agriculture and Without the help of our wild farming would be The practical farmer can riot afford to ignore the relations Which wild birds bear to his They are a part V of the natural resources of any The farmer will prosper in proportion to the aid he renders to these extra hands that nature has given They Save the While the value of the birds to the and planter has for years been it is believed by the authorities that their importance m preserving the forests is not generally According to a recent report of the insects the trees of the country alone cause an annual loss to estimated at more than On the oak alone species of which are sought and consumed by the birds of the prey On the such species' constantly attempt its tion on the on the on the and on the Careful analysis of the stomachs of thousands of creep- wood nut hatches and other birds of the show that their constant labor is to consume just these devastating The Insect Birds police the earth and without their services the farmer would be wrens and thrushes search the ground for grubs and The food of the meadow-lark consists of seventy-five per cent of injurious insects and twelve per cent of weed showing that it is a bird of great economic finches and quail eat a large amount of weed In a day's time a chickadee has been known to eat hundreds of insect eggs and that are very harmful to our trees and Warblers and vireos hunt the leaves and buds for moths and swallows and night-hawks are busy day and night catching flies that bother man and Hawks and owls are working silently in daylight and darkness to catch gophers and Spare the Blackbirds A number of years blackbirds were exceedingly abundant through eastern They were so plentiful that the farmers believed they were damaging They began poisoning the A single grain of corn soaked in strychnine was enough to kill a In the years that great numbers of these and other birds were destroyed during the spring and At the same time thousands of quail prairie-chickens and other game birds were killed every county to supply the As the birds be-an to swarms of locusts took their place These insects hatched out in countless numbers and devastating Few fields of grain escaped Many were entirely Where blackbirds wet the fields escaped with little damage Besides fact that pupils will learn words and meanings m a given time from bird study San 1 n 9 from book the economic value of the native bij entitle them to a place in school lessons the of training the next generation protect |
