or broomstick and it is ready
for the tree.

[Illustration: Drwg. by Wm. Kuehn. _Preparation of screen guards._]

In dealing with wild creatures, one must forebear condemning a whole
species of animals merely because at times they become troublesome, for
the main purpose of their existence, like owls, hawks and crows, they
may be more beneficial than otherwise.

A good word should be said here for skunks and moles. A great deal of
the skunk diet is insect life. The same is true of the mole whose diet
probably consists of 75% insects, mostly in their larval state. This is
an important feature of mole and skunk as they dig these insects out
before they mature into winged female adults which may lay hundreds of
eggs. If these larvae should be allowed to develop into a mature winged
insect that would lay eggs, this particular insect would multiply itself
hundreds of times over and it would take many more birds than at present
exist to take over the big job of keeping the balance between necessary
insect life and a surplus which would be destructive to all plant life.
We can never hope to eradicate all insect life which we deplore as being
deleterious to the interests of mankind, and it is mighty well that we
cannot do this for the insects are as important to us as all other life,
for without them we would be unable to produce the vast quantities of
foods that are now dependent upon such insect life. It is true that
they take their toll of the food that they are instrumental in
sometimes producing but when one attempts to unravel the mystery of
balance of nature one is confronted by the big question of how far to go
in the eradication of both animals and insect pests. Before man's
interference the wild crops were plentiful and balances were kept in
harmony by vast multitudes of frogs and toads, birds and rodents, all of
which have been slaughtered and reduced by such amounts as to endanger
man's food supply, forcing him to resort to poison sprays and other
measures in order to hold destruction in check. All of this expense and
trouble he could have avoided if he had been sensible enough to observe
the natural checks and foster the natural procedure of which nature is
the best guide.

Chapter 12

STORING AND PLANTING SEEDS

Most nut tree seed requires ideal storage conditions to preserve its
germinating power or viability. Under natural circumstances, such nuts
as black walnuts, English walnuts, butternuts, hic