20 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



task before us. That is the protection by the individual of the 

 birds about our farms and homes, and the way to go about it. A 

 short time ago in the west a magazine ofifered a prize for a 

 paper on how to keep the affections of a husband. The papers 

 offered in the competition were not to contain over a thousand 

 words each. The paper that took the prize had only three 

 words, "Feed the Brute." Now if you can find the way to a 

 man's heart by his stomach, perhaps you can get a good deal 

 nearer a bird in that way. Birds need shelter, protection and 

 food, and to be made to feel at home. 



On the north side of my house at Wareham is a thicket facing 

 to the south, shutting ofif the cold wind, and there are some 

 brush heaps. If I wanted to attract birds to my front yard I 

 would have a brush heap in it. You may have a few bushes 

 and vines to cover and screen it. That would help, and you can 

 throw food under the brush heap, and there is a refuge for the 

 birds, where they can fly from the cat or the hawk and if it is 

 covered with pine boughts in winter that will keep the snow 

 out and make a refuge the year round. My eldest boy thought 

 he would like to have a feeding station for birds. This was 

 long before we had feeding stations as we do now, and he put 

 out an open dr}^ goods box lying on its side with the opening to 

 the south, threw a little chaff in it, put it up next to the thicket 

 and then gradually every day moved it up nearer and nearer the 

 house, so by and by we had it right under the windows. And 

 the birds began to come; sometimes sixty or eighty birds could 

 be seen around that box in the winter, juncos and quail, and we 

 had nearly all the seed eating birds that can be found here in 

 winter, around that box or on the trees near the house at one 

 time or another. 



From the windows on the other side of the house the children 

 threw out some Japanese millet. All our seed eating birds like 

 Japanese millet, so they were attracted to the house. In the 

 fall, not waiting until winter, w^e took bones from the kettle and 

 tied them on the trees at some distance from the house. What 

 I want to show you here is this, — that it will not cost much 

 money to attract the birds. It can be done without the expendi- 

 ture of a dollar. Of course you can buy suet and meat trim- 

 mings, but refuse meat or fat is all that is necessary to attract 

 insect eating birds. 



