Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!inuxc!inuxd!jla
From: jla@inuxd.UUCP (Joyce Andrews)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: pesticides & birds
Message-ID: <1341@inuxd.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 89 15:16:42 GMT
References: <11752@ihlpa.ATT.COM> <10422@drutx.ATT.COM> <2368@bucsb.UUCP> <36385@bbn.COM>
Organization: AT&T Consumer Products, Indianapolis
Lines: 42

A true story...

In 1965 I built my first house on 10 acres of ground.  The
acerage was the old farm orchard, carved from land that had been
a homestead.  We moved in in December.  Along came Spring,
bringing with it the worst infestation of tent caterpillars SW
Ohio had seen in a long time.  We had the worst case, since we
had all the old apple trees.  All of our neighbors,  a mixture of
farmers and suburbanites, sprayed like crazy.  We could not afford
to spray, having spent our last dime on the house and land.  If I
remember right, we were still sleeping on a mattress on the floor
and eating from an old chrome dinette table we'd found in the
orchard.

Anyway, the starlings (yes, those ugly old birds everyone hates)
found our orchard and made mincemeat of the tents.  They'd rip
those tents to shreds, grabbing every little juicy worm.  Our
trees were denuded that year, but they all survived.  

The next year the caterpillars were back....heavily to my
neighbors and not so heavily to my property.  It appeared that
the spraying had allowed more larva to mature than the starlings
had allowed.  In three years, the neighbors were still fighting
the little beasties, and I had ten acres completely free of
tents.  My ten acres looked like it was the only property that
had been sprayed, when it was really the only property that
hadn't been.  It was a very graphic lesson to the us, and to the
neighbors, as well.

This wouldn't work in my yard now, which is 75 feet wide and 150
feet long.  So it doesn't apply to the original posting, which
discussed the situation in a subdivision area.

But it happened.


-- 
	Joyce Andrews King                      
	att!inuxd!jla
	AT&T, Indianapolis
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