TO GUARD TREES AGAINST HARES AND RABBITS. 



It would be easy to say a great deal more in illustration of the mistakes continually 

 made by citizens going into the country; of their false ideas of the cost of doing every- 

 thing ; of the profits of fiinning ; of their own talent for making an income from the 

 land, and their disappointment, growing out of a failure of all their theories and ex- 

 pectations. But we have perhaps said enough to cause some of our readers about to 

 take the step, to consider whether they mean to look upon country life as a luxury 

 they are willing to pay so much a year for, or as a means of adding something to their 

 incomes. Even in the former case, they are likely to underrate the cost of the luxury, 

 and in the latter they must set about it with the frugal and industrious habits of the 

 real farmer, or they will fail. The safest way is to attempt but a modest residence at 

 first, and let the more elaborate details be developed, if at all, only when we have 

 learned how much country life costs, and how far the expenditure is a wise one. For- 

 tunately, it is art, and not nature, which costs money in the country, and therefore the 

 beauty of lovely scenery and fine landscapes, (the right to enjoy miles of which may 

 often be had for a trifle,) in connection with a very modest and simple place, will give 

 more lasting satisfaction than gardens and pleasure grounds innumerable. Persons of 

 moderate means should, for this reason, always secure, in their fee simple, as much as 

 possible of natural beauty, and undertake the elaborate improvement of only small 

 places, which will not become a burden to them. Millionaires, of course, we leave out 

 of the question. They may do what they like. But most Americans, buying a coun- 

 try place, may take it for their creed, that 



Mail wants but little land below, 

 Nor wauls that Utile dear. 



TO GUARD TREES AGAINST HARES AND RABBITS. 



BY J. GIRARDIN, FRANCE.* 



All gardening amateurs know, by e.vperience, that rabbits and hares are very fond of 

 the bark of young apple trees of a year's growth, and especially of dwarf apple trees, of 

 which the most vigorous and healthy, are always attacked the first, because the bark is 

 more tender and savoury. 



As soon as the ground is covered with snow, these animals, finding nothing to nibble in 

 the fields, begin their devastations in the gardens; if they are numerous, and the snow is 

 abundant, a few nights will suffice to ruin completely the most beautiful plantation, and 

 destroy the result of several years' labor and care. Only a short time since, three hun- 

 dred fruit trees in the gardens and orchards of a land owner in the village of Othel in the 

 province of Hanover, in Belgium, were entirely stripped of their bark. 



Fortunately, nothing is easier than to shelter one's trees from the attacks of these ma- 

 rauders, that are protected by the law; the following method is employed by M.le Baeon 

 Vander Straeten de Waillet, for six or seven years, with entire success : 



He infuses about two pounds of quick lime, in nearly three gallons of water; he throws 

 several handsful of soot into this liquid, and stirs it until these two substances are 

 ghly mixed. He then makes a paste of a handful of fine rye flour and binds it in 



* Translated for the Horticulturist, from the Circle pratique d'horliculture de la Seine Inferieure. 



