Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1911 — Quails of Great Value In Disposing of Obnoxious Weeds. [ARTICLE]

Quails of Great Value In Disposing of Obnoxious Weeds.

Statistics which have recently been compiled, and which have been given out only after a careful study of the situation, show that each Bob White in the state consumes one-half of an ounce of weed seed daily from September 1 to April 1. It is estimated there are .lour quails to each square mile of farm lands in Indiana, and at this ratio the Bob Whites each year destroy in this state 640 tons of weed seed—enough weed seed to smother 30,000 acres of wheat. From June till September Bob White’s meal consists of one-third insects to two-thirds seeds. It is real! v remarkable with what precision they pick out those insects which are the worst foes of human food. The list contains the most superlatively destructive crop and garden pests of North America. The chinch bug, cotton worm, Mexican cotton boll weevil, army worm, potato bug, cucumber beetle, bean leaf beetle and several species of grasshoppers. It is probably the most efficient enemy known of the potato bug. Over 100 potato bugs have been found in a single bird. Wire worms and many other noxious pests are also eaten when found—cut wornm for example being eagerly devoured. The stomachs are often packed with them. They probably }rill 50 to 100 grosshoppers apiece each day. As one great authority says, “Every quail is worth Its weight in gold to the nation.”