WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 99 



twenty-five or thirty feet. A single fully-grown tree 

 will feed flocks of birds from early August until 

 late in winter. All winter through, birds of passage 

 will drop down to a breakfast or a dinner. This, en- 

 livens your house besides making it a bird paradise. I 

 should never establish a home without a liberal plant- 

 ing of the mountain ash ; and to make them doubly 

 useful, I would not only have them singly near my 

 house, but growing as a windbreak at some distance. 

 The twigs are set very thick and intertwined, so that 

 they constitute a very excellent shield against the 

 wind at all seasons. Another remarkably fine bush, 

 both for its beauty and for the food which it affords 

 the birds, I have before specified as the high-bush 

 cranberry. If it were not for the liability of this 

 bush to become sprawling with age, it would be ad- 

 mirable for a tall hedge or low windbreak. The ten- 

 dency can be counteracted by running a couple of 

 lines of strong wire, with an occasional loop, about 

 the heavier stalks. The flowers are inconspicuous, 

 but the berries, which begin to color in July a bright 

 yellow, hang in most prolific bunches of great beauty. 

 In August these have become deepened in color to a 

 dark, rich crimson. Ttfe birds rarely feed on these 

 berries before winter, that is, if there be an abun- 

 dance of the mountain ash. But in midwinter, cedar 

 birds, stray robins and pine grosbeaks get from them 

 many a hearty meal. The magnificent coloring and 

 the hearty good nature of the pine grosbeak makes 

 it a remarkably welcome bird. It is the winter robin. 

 How far we can modify the migratory habits of 

 birds by giving- shelter and food, I do not dare to 

 say, although some ornithologists insist that they do 



