The Flushing Bar
The Flushing Bar
Lynn:
Thought you’d enjoy these two articles on “Flushing Bars”. One is from the 1937 Pennsylvania Game News and the other is from an unidentified source. Both articles are from an old scrapbook belonging to a deceased aunt of mine. She loved the outdoors and birds especially, and must have thought the articles interesting enough to include in her “wild bird scrapbook.” This scrapbook was one she gave my family back in the late 1960’s and is one she probably put together in the 1940’s or there-abouts.
Maybe other conservation-minded draft animal folks might find the articles interesting too.
Sincerely,
Quinn Metheny
Ellwood City, PA
MR. SPORTSMAN
You are interested in perpetuating your game supply, are you not? Such being the case, we can suggest one excellent way of doing this very thing.
The time for mowing and harvesting will be here before we know it. It is then that many game birds and mammals are sacrificed to the cruel knives of farm implements. This annual slaughter of our valuable wildlife can be stopped to great degree if the farmers can be induced to use a flushing device which has been so effective in recent years.
The Game Commission has so much faith in the practicability of this game saving instrument that it is equipping all farmers who are cooperating in its new farm game projects.
Already a large number of landowners have agreed to use these devices and quite a few of the bars are now in the course of construction.
They are very simply made.
Think what you or your organization could do if they were to make up a lot of these devices and encourage the farmers of their community to use them while mowing the first 30 to 50 yards of each hay field.
Farmers Are Urged To Use Flushing Bar
Use a flushing bar while mowing. It saves millions of dollars worth of wildlife. It is important that the flushing device be used the first thirty to fifty yards around edges of fields where a majority of game birds nest. It is even better to leave the outside row of grain or hay standing to provide hiding and feeding places for wildlife after the fields are mowed.
All farmers are urged to construct one of these game savers. Write the Game Commission at Harrisburg, for further details.
Farmers, by using a flushing bar while harvesting hay or grain, will save millions of dollars worth of wildlife in a course of a year, in the opinion of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
The flushing bar is easily constructed and can be readily attached to the mower or binder tongue. It consists of nothing more than a good solid pole about 10 to 12 feet long, upon which is hung a series of chains about 12 inches apart. These chains flush any nesting bird in their path, thus enabling them to escape before they are cut to pieces by the cruel knives. Farmers now using this device make a practice, when the nesting bird is flushed, to jump the knives of the mower over a patch of grass around the nest. In this way it will remain protected and the bird will return and hatch her young.
It is important that the flushing device be used the first 30 to 50 yards around the fields, where a majority of the game birds nest. It is even better to leave the outside swath of hay or grain standing to provide hiding and feeding places for wildlife after the fields are mowed.