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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



and surrounded by larye buildings and several huge 

 smoke stacks. 



Nearly all of my bird houses are of wood because I 

 have found in long experience that the birds prefer this 

 material. I have a martin and a wren house that have 

 been up for 19 years and they are occupied every year 

 and are in as good condition as when erected. The 

 martin and bluebird houses should be erected on a pole, 

 although I have won bluebirds by a hanging house as 

 well as by one on a pole. 



Here are a few general rules which should be observed 

 w hen you make or set a bird house : 



First : All bird houses should be at least a little 

 weather-worn for all birds look with suspicion upon new- 

 ness and abhor fresh paint. Yet the house should be 

 well painted so it will last as after being once occupied 

 the occupants will return to it every year and they will 

 expect the same house and if anything should happen to 

 the house or it were substituted by a new one you would 

 lose your birds, sure. 



Second: The house should be so placed that there 

 will be as little danger as possible from that great enemy 

 of all birds — the domestic cat. 



Third: The openings in the houses should be nf the 

 following dimensions : 



Martin houses, 2x2 inches or 2 x254 inches. 



Wren houses, 15/16 ths of an inch. 



Bluebird houses, 1^ inches. 



Flicker houses, 234 inches. 



Tree swallow house, 154 inches. 



Fourth : Provide by all means, one bird bath in a 

 sheltered place, preferably in some spot where you can 

 have the great pleasure of watching the birds bathe and 

 at the same time protect them from the danger of cats. 



Fifth: Proper height for houses: The purple mar- 

 tin, which lives in great colonies numbering from 20 to 

 100, desire a house not less than 16 feet in the air. It 

 can be higher but must not be lower. I have a house 

 for martins which has 26 rooms and stands on a pole 

 16 feet high. There are more than 100 martins in this 

 house every summer and the same birds come back to 

 me year after year. I know this because I band a great 

 deal of them. The proper height for the wren house, 

 which should be hung from a tree or projection from 

 some building, is about 10 to 12 feet. The proper height 

 for a bluebird house, which should lie placed on a pole, 

 is 12 to 16 feet. 



Don't imagine that because you live in the city or Inisy 

 town that you cannot win native birds. There are birds 

 near you and you will be surprised how readily they dis- 

 cover an attractive house so placed that they can with 

 safety take it as their own and while I myself live in a 

 suburb of Chicago, I am really in the city as my home 

 is just over the line and as many as 1,500 autos an hour 

 pass at certain times of the day. I have only one acre 

 of ground, yet I have 54 bird houses, numerous shelters, 

 food devices, baths, etc., in this garden and have from 

 300 to 500 native birds living on my property every 

 summer. I have from 50 to 75 birds who stay with me 

 all the year around. Birds do not freeze as many people 

 suppose — they suffer and die from hunger. If they could 

 get something to eat they could stand any cold in the 

 winter, as their little hearts beat just twice as fast as 

 ours. By providing them wath shelter and food in pro- 

 tected food devices, I am enabled to keep them with me 

 the year around. 



I never have to spray or treat my fruit trees or plants. 

 Mv birds take care of them for me. 



DEVELOPMENT WORK OF UTICA, N. Y. 

 PARK SYSTEM. 



The L'tica Park Commission has been making earnest 

 endeavors through initiating condemnation proceedings 

 and otherwise to acquire land needed to complete the 

 westerly link in the Utica Parkway now three and one 

 half miles long. The last link is economically of vast 

 importance to the city because it will connect the main 

 thoroughfare of Utica, Genesee street, w'ith the state 

 roads and country to the southwest, cause the most 

 Ijeautiful hills around LTtica to be built up, help keep tax- 

 rate down, through an increased valuation of property 

 estimated to be — when parkway is completed — about 600 

 per cent, as as been the case with previous construction. 

 A magnificent viaduct similar in appearance to the cele- 

 brated Luten Designs has already teen erected in the 

 westerly link across the railroads leaving Utica for the 

 South and West. 



The four new sanitary toilets constructed last year are 

 ready to operate. They are solid concrete, with red 

 asbestos shingles and brown trimmings. The ones in 

 the parks are being concealed with mounds, trees and 

 shrubs, giving, in effect, a semi-cave appearance. 



The tennis courts are more popular than ever, as is 

 the deer run. These animals, and the Opossums, Black 

 Squirrels, wild rabbits and Pheasants are proving a 

 source of great pleasure to the people. 



The Park Commissioners hope to secure other deer, 

 bears, racoons, and gold and silver pheasants as they 

 are able to construct enclosures for them. 



Mr. Thomas R. Proctor, the public spirited citizen, 

 who gave these large Utica parks to the city, has recently 

 constructed a modern, up-to-date, exquisitely landscaped 

 park, which he has named after his brother. This park 

 is full of interesting, natural and formal features, is part 

 hills, part valleys ; full of streams, lakes, natural springs ; 

 contains swans, etc., a glorious pinetum and arboreal 

 collection of hardwoods. Mr. Fred T. Proctor has just 

 completed a most beautiful formal entrance on Rutger 

 Boulevard using two ornamental columns of finest cut 

 stone one each side of the entrance. 



The Park Commission, a year ago, granted the use of 

 a famous, old house, built chiefly from black walnut — 

 now park property — to the boy scouts of which there 

 are several flourishing troops here in Utica. The mem- 

 bers of the Utica Park Commission are, F. E. Thomas, 

 chairman: Tom W. Johnson, W. C. J. Doolittle, E. B. 

 Townsend, secretary ; E. M. Swiggett, superintendent 

 of parks. 



A UNIQUE PROPOSITION. 



■ \ new feature in future work will be the co-operation 

 of the city parks with the Houston florists along a plan 

 outlined bv Park Superintendent C. L. Brock, who made 

 an ofTer to the florists' club that all florists would be given 

 bedding space in the parks where they could plant such 

 stock as they desired, and the park gardeners would cul- 

 tivate it for the additional beautification of the parks. 

 Tlie stock would remain the property of the florists who 

 put it there, with the understading that in the fall they 

 could take cuttings from the plants useful to them in 

 propagaing during the winter in their greenhouses. It is 

 understood several of the members of the clubs will avail 

 themselves of this offer. — Exchange. 

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