SUMMER MEETING AT BROOKFIELD. 65 



close to a given variety to insure its fruitfulness. Science refuses as 

 yet to disclose the secret. Decades of experimenting- are likely to give 

 us valuable positive knowledge. Perhaps generations will reduce the 

 detached facts to a system out of which shall come rules for practice 

 that shall give the world better varieties and very much larger quanti- 

 ties of fruit, and go far toward removing the uncertainty of its pro- 

 duction. 



THE CODLING MOTH 



Seems to have deserted us. Yesterday at our festival Dr. Goslin told 

 us that he had not seen a sign of one this spring. Others agreed. I 

 have just come in from a search among my trees, and not on any of 

 them have I been able to find an apple showing at the blossom end the 

 exuvia that tells of his presence, nor could I find a single puncture that 

 I believed to bave been made by him. Has he gone — if so, will he stay, 

 and how long 1 



THE CHERRIES AND THE BIRDS. 



The sweet cherries drew the cedar bird from his usual feeding 

 places, and he came upon us in flocks from we know not where. Like 

 Cossacks on the Don, he swooped down upon us and we were his. He 

 took the pulps, but Ah ! he left the stones with us and sticking to the 

 stems. Where he goes often, he leaves no sweet cherries behind. They 

 have been little seen before this year. May their shadows vanish for- 

 ever. 



Within thirty feet of my door are two Early Kichmond trees, well 

 loaded with fruit. Yesterday (Sunday) morning, between the two trees 

 I placed a fishing-pole, its butt end fast in the ground and on its top end 

 tied on, in good shape for shaking and rustling, a newspaper. To the 

 pole I tied a cord reaching in at my door. For hours yesterday, and 

 again this morning, as I read or wrote, I watched for the birds, and 

 when they came jerked my cord and disturbed the newspaper, never 

 failing to send the bird away as quick and as fast as he could go. 



The cherries, though they be not nearly grown to their full size, 

 nor more than half colored, and though they are yet quite sour, can be 

 seen from afar. Cat-birds, jays, orioles, red-birds and three unknowns, 

 the little winged brutes come like arrows from long range straight for the 

 trees, and for only the best specimens. Even the chickens are after the 

 cherries, ami the big white rooster, fat as he is, is cunning at getting 

 them off the trees for his harem. We could afford to feed a reasonable 

 number of birds if they would swallow the cherries, stones and all ; but 

 h r — .1 



