"Noxious" or "Beneficial"? False Premises in Economic Zoology

Abstract

So many thousands of American dollars have been spent in the last ten years upon the investigations of the United States Department of Agriculture into the economic relations of plants and animals to man, and so much of inestimable value has been accomplished in this direction, that any criticism of the work turned out may seem captious, so greatly does the good outweigh the bad in the gross account. Nevertheless, there is always a disaffected portion of the agricultural classes who sneer at the study of bugs and bird stomachs as a most unhappy and worthless waste of taxes. It is too true that the horse sense and field experience of some of these country folk often has a deeper and more practical wisdom in it than the professional zoologist or botanist can gain in his laboratory work. Even the specialist in some of these studies would fain join in with the cry of the farmer that all our efforts to regulate the ravages of noxious animals and plants are as likely to increase or transform the evil as to correct it. Under former conditions of ignorance there was abundant cause to advocate such a happy-go-lucky theory, but now, thanks be to the persevering efforts of true science and wise legislation, we must all agree that it is our duty to spend and be spent in these researches. It has been the writer's privilege to belong to both classes in this friendly controversy, and, with a fellow-feeling and sincere respect for each of these, he believes that the following remarks will be taken as evidence of his desire to reconcile and not antagonize the truth-seeking patrons and disciples of husbandry, whether in the field or the laboratory. It will best subserve the object of this essay to use Bulletin NVo. 3 of the United States Department of Agriculture on the Hawks and Owls of the United States in their Relation to