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Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 19, 19 November 1874, Page 3

A correspondent to the c Australasian' writes as to the merits of Cape weed as food ibr cows. They feed upon it readily, and yield a large supply of milk, but the weed gives a most unpleasant taste to both milk and butter j the latter will not keep if potted down. We complain of it very much, and on large dairy farms that I have visited in Adelaide, they sell the butter as soon as possible after being made, as keepingincreases tbe peculiar twang. William Cullen Bryant, the eminent American writer, lately delivered a lecture, in which the multiplication of insects was commented on, and in which tbe opinion was expressed that one of tbe chief causes of this increase and the attendant comparative failure of fruit crops, is the wanton destruction of birds. There is nothing for us to do but to take our winged alie's into partnership, allowing them, a part of the annual product on condition of their protecting the remainder, as the traveller in the East pays a tribute to the Bedouin chief on condition of being protected by him from the robberies of his tribe. We must make choice between tbe insects and the birds. Birds multiply with comparative slowness, and if they prey upon tbe crops they can be seen and scared away. Insects multiply by myriads, and evade the attempts of man to destroy them. Birds take a small part of tbe fruit or f ipened grain,- insects destroy them by wholesale. But, even if the crows only were destroyed, the effect would be mischievous. Crows feed upon grass- , hoppers, crickets, and other insects, and their stomachs are found full of them. A single insect which escapes them becomes tbe parent of thousands, and each one of these is the progenitor of thousands more, which move silently and surely to tbe work of destruction. Even the unrooting of a few corn plants WOuM be of far less consequence than the mischief from millions of destructive insects prorogated without check. The chairman also read another extract, in which allusion was made to certain experiments made in Australia, proving that the crows consume great numbers of caterpillars, whose ravages would otherwise be quite apparent upon the wheat crop of that country.