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Show FEEDS yffiSECTS Bobolink a Common Summer Resident in Northern States. FEEDS MAINLY ON INSECTS Also Devours Many Weed Seeds Inaccurate In-accurate Grading Cause of Much Loss to Western Wool Growers Grow-ers Remedy Is Suggested. (Prepared by the United States Department Depart-ment of Agriculture.) The bobolink, rice bird, or reed bird, is a common summer resident of the United States, north of about latitude 40 degrees, and from New England westward to the Great Plains, wintering winter-ing beyond our southern border. In New England there are few birds about which so much romance clusters clus-ters as this rollicking songster, naturally natur-ally associated with sunny June meadows; but in the South there are none on whose head so many maledictions maledic-tions have been heaped on account of Its fondness for rice. During its sojourn in the northern states it feed mainly upon insects and seeds of useless plants; but while rearing rear-ing its young, insects constitute its chief food, and almost the exclusive diet of its brood. After the young are able to fly, the whole family gathers Into a small flock and begins to live i tr Bobolink, Rice Bird or Reed Bird Length About Seven Inches. almost entirely upon vegetable food. Thi3 consists for the most part of weed seeds, since in the North these birds do not appear to attack grain to any great extent. They eat a few- oats, but their stomachs do not reveal a great quantity of this or any other grain. As the season advances they gather into large flocks and move southward, until by the end of August nearly all have left their breeding grounds. On their way they frequent the reedy marshes about the mouths of rivers and on the inland waters of the coast region and subsist largely upon wild rice. Formerly, when the low marshy shores of the Carolinas anti some of the more southern states were devoted de-voted to rice culture the bobolinks made great havoc both upon the sprouting rice in spring and upon the ripening grain on their return migration migra-tion In the fall. With a change in the rice-raising districts, however, this damage is no longer done. Co-operative Marketing of Wool. Serious losses are often suffered by the flock master because of improper methods of handling the clip. Western West-ern wool growers are paid lower prices than foreign producers because of inaccurate grading. In recent years they have made some advancement ad-vancement in clipping and assorting assort-ing fleeces as shown by cleaner clips being offered for sale in some localities. In the West some ; of the large sheep breeders' associations associa-tions have officially recommended certain changes in the handling of wool by the growers. It is estimated that improper methods of preparing the wool for shipment cost the flock master from one to three cents a pound, for the manufacturer Is frequently fre-quently put to an exta expeneye, against which, of course, he protects himself by lowering the price to the grower. To remedy this condition, some form of co-operation among wool growers in any given region is urged in a new' publication of the department depart-ment of agriculture, bulletin 206, "The Wool Grower and the Wool Trade." The individual alone can do little to improve matters, for his clip is likely like-ly to be too small to induce the buyers buy-ers to make any alteration in their accustomed methods of estimating wool values. With co-operation, however, how-ever, it should be possible to prepare the entire clip of any section so that the reputation of its wool would be enhanced and the growers obtain the full market value of their product. A sufficient number of wool growers should be included in each co-operative association to enable at least 4,000 or 5,000 pounds of each of the various grades to be marketed at one time. Co-operation will, of course, do little lit-tle good, however, unless the Individual Individ-ual growers follow improved methods of handling the clip. An Instance of the present low price of American 'wool as compared with foreign is given In the bulletin already mentioned. men-tioned. Two lots of wool of the same grade, one of them from Idaho and the other from Australia, were purchased pur-chased by a Philadelphia manufacturer manufactur-er the American at 18V cents a pound and the foreign one at 28 cents a pound, before scouring. In the American fleece the kind of wool that this manufacturer really wanted amounted to 86.79 per cent of the total; In the foreign freece to 98.96 per cent. A more accurate system of grading had given this manufacturer 12 per cent more of what he wanted than the American methods. In consequence con-sequence the foreign sheep grower got the larger price for his fleece. The manufacturer paid for the imported im-ported wool 28 cents a pound and for the domestic wool 18V4 cents a pound a difference of 9V4 cents. By the time shrinkage, "off sorts," etc.. had been deducted, however, the cost per clean pound to the manufacturer manufac-turer of the wool he wanted was 41.32 cents for the American fleece and 44.69 cents for the imported a difference differ-ence of only 3.37 cents. The bulletin suggests 13 rules for the wool grower which, it is said, no one can afford to neglect if he Is at all solicitous of the reputation of his clip. These rules are: 1. Adhere to a settled policy of breeding the type of sheep suitable to the locality. 2. Sack lambs', ewes', wethers' and all buck, or very oily fleeces separately. sepa-rately. If the' bucks or part of the ewes or wethers have wool of widely different kind from the remainder of the flock, shear such separately and put the wool in separate sacks so marked. 3. Shear all black sheep atone time, preferably last, and put the wool in separate sacks. 4. Remove and sack separately all tags, and then allow no tag discount upon the clip as a whole. 5. Have slatted floors In the holding hold-ing pens. 6. Use a smooth, light and hard glazed (preferably paper) twine. 7. Securely knot the string on each fleece. 8. Turn sacks wrong side out and shake well before filling. 9. Keep wood dry at all times. 10. Make the brands on the sheep as small as possible and use a branding brand-ing material that will scour out. 11. Know the grade and value of your wool and price it accordingly. 12. Do not sweat sheep excessively before shearing. 13. Keep the corral sweepings out of the wool. 14. Do not sell the wool bc'ore it is grown. 15. When all these rules are followed fol-lowed place your personal brand or your name upoi the bags or bales. |