i yo LUTHER BURBANK 



busy task of "thwack, thwack, thwacking," on the barn 

 eaves, had come to see about the discovery of the nut- 

 hatch. From his hunting ground among the thornless 

 blackberry bushes the towhee came calling "chewink, che- 

 wink, chewink." Three catbirds, being attracted by the 

 noise, flitted to the walnut-trees and soon cried out, "Zuay, 

 zuay," while two sap-suckers, who had been the lone occu- 

 pants of the walnut plot, before the nuthatch made his 

 discovery, circled around the trunk of a large tree, one 

 after the other. They occasionally stopped to listen to the 

 din caused by a number of jays fishing about, screaming 

 and scolding excitedly their "ike, ike, ike," seeming to 

 say, "At last we have found the prize, we can get the 

 walnut kernels now." 



The woodpecker was the wisest bird among the visitors, 

 for he ceased his "ka-rah-ka" and darted off to a near-by 

 grove with a walnut in his beak, no doubt in search of a 

 dead tree trunk in which he could lay up his winter's store. 



The master stood for a time watching his little feathered 

 friends. He did not want to harm them, for they are very 

 useful in destroying insects that injure the trees and fruit, 

 but he finally decided that he would have to train his 

 walnut trees to bear nuts with thicker shells, although it 

 took him many years to train a tree to bear such thin- 

 shelled nuts. 



Years and years ago most of the walnuts were brought 

 into California from France, Germany, and England. At 



