A ONE-TREE PUBLIC PARK 



99 



For some other unknown reason their nesting season 

 is greatly delayed and although they are with us through- 

 out the year, they wait until all other birds except the 

 goldfinches have reared their broods before commencing 

 to build. Some nests are started as late as September but 

 the majority are begun about the middle of July and some 

 as earlv as the middle of June. The nest is a rather bulky 

 structure placed in a fruit or shade tree or often in a thorn 

 bush from five to twenty feet from the ground, and the 



A ONE-TREE PUBLIC PARK 



THE CEDAR BIRD RETURNS WITH A FULL MARKET BASKET 

 Instead of carrying the food in its beak like most birds, the waxwing fills its 

 crop and later regurgitates it. Here the bird's throat is seen distended by the 

 cherries which it has brought back to its young. 



bluish gray eggs are doubly spotted, some of the spots 

 seeming to be put on beneath the stirface of the shell. 



Waxwings are faithful parents, one bird usually standing 

 on guard on some conspicuous tree top near the nest while 

 the other incubates or broods the young. 



The food is brought to the young in the crops of the 

 parent birds, their necks often appearing quite distorted 

 when a half dozen or more cherries are brought back at 

 once. The accompanying picture of the bird at the nest 

 shows the bird's neck thus distended. In the other photo- 

 graph of the single young, the old bird has just thrown 

 back its head and coughed up a cherry which it is about 

 to present to its hungry offspring. 



The best protection against the depredations of the 

 waxwings and other fruit-loving birds is the planting of 

 plenty of native fruit about the orchard to supply the 

 food which they need, and an occasional frightening. 

 Strips of paper or bright bits of glass or tin hung in the 

 trees are sometimes efficacious, although it is usually neces- 

 sary to frighten the birds occasionally by banging a tin 

 pan or firing a blank cartridge. It is a shortsighted policy 

 to shoot them for they more than repay the farmer for 

 the cherries by the insects which they destroy at other 

 times of the year. 



By Allen H. Wright 



BECAUSE a noble oak tree had stood for many years 

 on a highway leading out of the city of Visalia, 

 California, the authorities, when it came time 

 recently to improve this thoroughfare as a city street, 

 decided to permit the tree to remain where it was, in all 

 its glory. 



To do this in a legal manner an ordinance was 

 adopted setting aside a plat of ground about the base of 



THE COUNTRY'S SMALLEST PARK 



This is located in Visalia, California, and was created in order to preserve a 

 t noble oak tree on a highway leading out of the city. 



the tree, ten feet square, and dedicating it as Askin Park, 

 in honor of the mayor of the city, and the wife of the 

 latter was made the official custodian of the park, situated 

 at the intersection of Main Street and Giddings Avenue. 

 Now the city of Visalia, in addition to its many other 

 interesting features, claims to have the smallest park, 

 dedicated for public use, in the United States, if not in 

 the world, It can lay claim, in all probability, to having 

 the only one-tree park in the country, also. Visitors to 

 Visalia often take the drive out Main Street in order to be 

 able to say they have viewed this diminutive park. 



AN immense pecan tree on the farm of W. A. Tonini, 

 a few miles east of Evansville, Indiana, was felled 

 recently. The tree was six feet in diameter and, 

 according to the rings, was 400 years old. The tree was 

 visited by the officers of the National Nut Growers' Asso- 

 ciation and was declared the largest pecan tree in the 

 United States. 



