Items of Interest March 25, 1916 Issue

Items of Interest

In a recent address, Col. G. O. Shields, president of the League of American Sportsmen, said: "The cotton growers are suffering a loss of one hundred million dollars a year by reason of the ravages of the boll-weevil. Why? Because the quails, the prairie-chickens, the meadowlarks, and other birds which were formerly there in millions, have been swept away by gunners. The grain growers are losing over one hundred million dollars a year on account of the work of the chinch-bug. They are losing another two hundred million dollars a year on account of the work of the Hessian fly. Both of these are very small insects, almost microscopic in size. It takes over twenty-four thousand chinch-bugs to weigh one ounce and nearly fifty thousand Hessian flies to weigh an ounce. A quail taken in a wheat field in Ohio and examined by a Government expert had in its craw the remains of over twelve hundred chinch-bugs it had eaten that day. Another quail taken in Kansas and examined by another Government expert had in its craw the remains of over two thousand Hessian flies that it had eaten that day. The farmers of the northern states are paying out sixteen to seventeen million dollars a year for paris green to put on their potato vines. A quail taken in a potato field in Pennsylvania and examined by a Government entomologist had in its stomach the remains of one hundred and twenty-six potatobugs. The quail is one of the most valuable insect-eating birds of its size in the world; and yet there are so-called sportsmen all over the land, thousands of them, who insist on having legal authority to kill every quail they can find during at least three months of each year.

The United States Senate, after four weeks of debate, has passed the Shields bill to provide for development of water-power in navigable waters by private capital. The vote was 46 to 22. Conservation champions fought hard to amend the measure, but without avail. Several senators voted for the bill who had opposed it during the debate. One of them, it is reported, said he considered it bad legislation, but firmly believed it would be amended when it reached the House of Representatives. The bill was opposed by the National Conservation Association. Many amendments were offered by a score of senators, but the bill as passed was changed but little from its original form.

As adopted, the bill permits the construction of dams in navigable waters under licenses issued by the secretary of war, and gives grantees the right to operate power plants for fifty years, after which time the Federal Government may take over the plant after giving two years' notice and paying a fair value, to be determined by the secretary of war and the owner or by proceedings in the United States courts. Regulation of rates and services is placed with the states in which the plants are located, or if interstate commerce is involved, with the interstate commerce commission on appeals, when the states involved are unable to agree on reasonable rates and adequate service. The bill also provides that no works shall be operated in any combination to limit the output of electric power or in restraint of trade.

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