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, hickory nuts, pecans, hazelnuts, filberts and almost all other nuts, will be planted by squirrels, mice and other rodents.  Although most of these will be eaten by the animals who buried them, a large percentage of the ones which are not eaten will sprout.  The sprouts which achieve maturity and bearing age, however, will be only a very small percentage—­some say only a fraction of 1%—­of the number that sprouted.  This is an expensive and wasteful method, horticulturally speaking, but it does indicate that it is best to plant nuts as soon as possible after they have properly ripened and been dried.