NEFER CLOSED BIRD RESTAURANT 101 



or more clammy, misshapen objects with the young snakes just 

 emerging. In fact, I helped the wriggling mass of snakedom cross 

 the threshold of life one moment and, remembering the robin episode, 

 in the next assisted its exit, but as vermin exterminators, today they 

 are spared. 



More Trees and Shrubs. 



The dark foliage of the Japanese umbrella trees contrasted well 

 with the lighter green of a grouped background of umbrella-headed 

 catalpas that outlined the "heater piece" where two roadways met. 

 Glinting through the silver and green were golden chained labur- 

 nums, yellow jessamine, yellow currant, golden yew, golden hop 

 tree, golden oak and the long list of yellows that glowed like bottled 

 sunshine against the gray of overcast days. 



Japan, that master developer of Dame Nature's products, was 

 our stand-by as exampled in lilac and quince, magnolia, sweet-scented 

 syringa and delicate blooming deutzia, as well as the golden balled 

 kerria, that has been brought to a brighter gold, more closely knit, and 

 fuller rounded blossom under the skies of Japan. These and hundreds 

 of other plants attest the painstaking propagation of centuries-. 



No more attractive shrub blooms in that arboretum than the 

 purple-fruited Callicarpa. Close to it was planted the straggling, 

 silver leaved Baccharis, and back of the two a noble specimen of Nord- 

 man's fir, whose silver-under-sided leaves dance in sunlight. The 

 flaming red of the burning bush (the Euonymous or strawberry 

 tree, one of the few plants that can squarely face salt water without 

 cringing, but whose young life the scale dearly loves to throttle) is 

 sandwiched beween flat-branched, hardy orange trees, full of yellowish 

 uneatable fruit. Near it in season are the beautiful shell-like blossoms 

 of the pearl bush, and forming part of the same background is the 

 maiden-hair tree. The luxuriantly growing mulberry, whose prolific 

 crop of fruit resembling the thimbleberry drops before it really ripens; 

 the feathery tamarisk from India and Africa; the tropical-looking 

 catalpa Indian bean whose leaves are late in coming and among 

 the first to shrivel with frost, contrast well with a group of golden 

 elders, in turn fronting the dark purple foliage of the copper plum, 

 the Prunus pissardi, and close by it the rose of Sharon, one of the last 

 plants to leave and bloom. 



Keyless and Never Closed Bird Restaurant. 



Here grew that shrub of shrubs, the sea buckthorn, Hippophae 

 rahmnoides, of striking silver gray foliage, later its stems packed 

 with orange colored berries that added many feathered visitors to 

 our home bird colony. In one long stretch of the arboretum where 

 the stroll path was most heavily screened we made a protected game 

 preserve, a real bird paradise; here were planted a wide gamut of 



