Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 166, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1910 — COAX CROWS BACK [ARTICLE]

COAX CROWS BACK

Farmers Drive Birds Away and Grubs Destrdy Corn. Black Fellows Finally Induced to Return and Trouble Disappears— Agriculturists Now See OldTime Green Fields. South Haven, Mich. —There is one region where the crow, generally considered a pest, is not only a welcome visitor but was actually coaxed and begged to return there, after having been driven away by years of merciless persecution. That spot, is the southeast portion of Van Buren county, Michigan. Years ago there had never been many crows in this vicinity, but one season about that time they began to arrive in countless numbers. They occupied every piece of woods for miles around, and it was estimated that the colony contained not fewer than 500,000 of what the farmers supposed were winged marauders.

It is rich land out there, and sixty bushels of corn to the acre was not too much to expect as an average yield. Naturally,■- everybody believed that this great army of crows had heard of that garden spot, and had marched upon it to devastate the newly planted fields, and leave ruin and famine In their wake, so men, women and children organized In a systematic campaign against the black destroyers. They were hunted in their roosts, they were trapped, they were poisoned, and they were even pursued by fire. The farmers soon noticed another new visitor that season—a grhb that not only attacked the roots of the young corn, but also played havoc

with the grass. They bemoaned these disastrous visitations greatly, for it never occurred to them that the crow was among them for any other purpose than evil. So the warfare on the crow was carried on with merciless vigor and the next season there was a decided decrease in the size of the crow colony. It grew smaller and smaller year by year, until only a few wild and straggling flocks put in an appearance.

During all this time the yield of corn an acre had gradually decreased and the crow was credited with being the principal cause of the loss. The grub was still at work, but the farmers had no idea that they were not able to handle it. But the first season the crowds failed to appear the yield of corn was smaller than It had ever been, and the season was one of the most favorable for corn in the his-

tory of the county. Rome of the farmers went to thinking. The grub increased in numbers. The corn crop kept on growing less and less, until ten bushels to the acre was as bjg a. yleld as that rich bottom would return, and the crows had not been permitted to get another foothold in the region, either. Then the thinking farmers made up their minds that the reason the crows had put in such a large and sudden appearance a few years before was that they had simply followed the wake of the grubs and had come to feed, on that Irrepressible pest, and then the community felt like kicking itself clear out of the state. They went to work to try to get the crows back again. They sent clear to the Wabash country, where the biggest crow roost on top of, the earth is located, and had thousands of crows captured and forwarded tp them. The next season something like the old-time colony took up its quarters in the woods and that fall the biggest crop of corn that had been known in the region for five years was gathered.