1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



213 



The sea kale is of easy culture, either by seeds, 

 slips, or pieces of the root ; that from seed, how- 

 ever, is the most preferable. Any land in good 

 heart will answer. The seed should be sown 

 about two inches deep, the ground pressed down 

 with the spade or hoe, and in about three weeks 

 the plants will make their appearance ; these 

 should be thinned out to about one inch apart, 

 and they want little attention other than to keep 

 the weeds down. 



At the commencement of winter, clear the 

 plants of decayed leaves, bend over the tops 

 carefully, and cover them with litter. The fol- 

 lowing spring the seedlings having made strong, 

 healthy plants, should be transplanted into 

 ridges two feet distant ; they v/ill then produce 

 what is called the crown, or edible part at the 

 top of each. It is a very lasting plant, produc- 

 ing as strong shoots or sprouts at eight or even 

 ten years old as they did at four. The sea kale 

 being a maratime plant, a slight dressing of salt 

 to the soil previous to setting them out, will 

 greatly benefit their growth. This vegetable is 

 cooked in the manner of spinach and other 

 greens. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 ORNITHOLOGY". 

 BY S. P. FOWLER. 



There is probably no branch of Natural Sci- 

 ence that has enlisted so many ardent admirers 

 as Ornitholog)'. The readers of the Farmer are 

 no doubt aware of the enthusiasm displayed by 

 AV'ilson, Audubon and Nuttall. William Bartram, 

 one of our earliest naturalists, was a great lover 

 of our feathered tribes. He remarks, "birds are, 

 in general, social and benevolent creatures, in- 

 telligent, ingenious, volatile, active beings." J. 

 P. Girard, the author of the Birds of Long 

 Island, says, "it his opinion that those who pass 

 through life without stopping to admire the 

 beauty, organization, melody or habits of birds, 

 rob themselves of a very great share of the 

 pleasures of existence. In spring when nature 

 has recovered from the chilling blasts of winter, 

 and again puts forth her rich foliage, what can 

 be more delightful, than to listen to the rich 

 melody of our songsters, robed in their nuptial 

 plumage, perched on the branch of the rich mag- 

 nolia, arranging their splendid attire with stud- 

 ied care, as if jealous the swelling buds would 

 put forth blossoms that would rival them in beau- 

 ty ?" John Ray, the father of British Natural 

 History, in his work entitled "The Wisdom of 

 God manifested in the Works of Creation," pub- 

 lished in London in 1727, remarks, when speak- 

 ing of birds, "by their melodious accents they 

 gratify our ears; by their beautiful shapes and 

 colors they delight our eyes ; being very orna- 

 mental to the world, and rendering the country 

 where the hedges and woods are full of them, 

 very pleasant and cheerly, which without them 

 would be no less lonely and melancholy ; not to 

 mention the exercise, diversion and recreation 

 which some of them give us." We are informed 



by Montaga, that the venerable Dr. Latham, a 

 distinguished English ornithologist, when in his 

 ninety-first year, was as delighted in seeing a spe- 

 cimen of a new bird, as a boy on finding his first 

 bird's nest ! 



The eccentric English ornithologist, Charles 

 Waterton, has given us an amusing account of 

 the means employed by his instructors to coun- 

 teract in his boyhood the growing passion for the 

 study of birds. How poorly they succeeded in 

 their endeavors to destroy his enthusiasm, may 

 be learned from his autobiography, and the read- 

 ing of his admirable "Third Series on Natural 

 History," published in 18o7 when in his seventy- 

 sixth year. In his account of his life and adven- 

 tures, he says, "when I was not quite eight years 

 old, I had managed to climb upon the roof of 

 an outhouse, and had got to a starling's nest un- 

 der one of the slates. Had my foot slipped, I 

 should have been in as bad a plight as was poor 

 Ophelia in the willow tree, when the 'envious 

 sliver broke.' The ancient housekeeper, men- 

 tioned in the account of the barn owl, had 

 cast her rambling eye upon me ; seeing the dan- 

 ger I was in, she wejit and fetched a piece of 

 gingerbread, with which she lured me down, and 

 she seized me as though I had been a malefactor. 

 At nine years old, I was sent to school in the 

 north of England, where literature had scarcely 

 any elfect upon me, although it was duly admin- 

 istered in large doses, by a very scientific hand ; 

 but I made vast proficiency in the art of finding 

 birds' nests. It was judged necessary by the 

 master of the school to repress this inordinate 

 relish for ornithological architecture, which, in 

 his estimation, could be productive of no good. 

 Accordingly, the birch rod was brought to bear 

 upon me when occasion offered ; but the warm 

 application of it, in lieu of effacing my ruling 

 passion, did but tend to render it more distinct 

 and clear. Thus are bright colors in crockery 

 ware made permanent by the action of fire ; thus 

 is dough turned into crust by submitting it to 

 the oven's heat." 



To my mind, language used by modern natu- 

 ralists, expressive of their great love for birds, 

 appears tame when compared with the enthusi- 

 asm discovered by some of the old authors. The 

 most enthusiastic language we remember to have 

 read upon the importance, or rather pleasure, to 

 be derived from the knowledge of birds, was re- 

 corded in a work originally written in High Ger- 

 man, in a rollicking style, by Peter KolbeU; in 

 1731, in his preface to the "Natural History of 

 the Cape of Good Hope ;" wherein he says, "the 

 beauty, the variety and music of the fe.ithered 

 nations are enchanting delights ; and their in- 

 stincts and habits often nobly instructive and 

 amusing. I cannot help adding a reflection or 

 two more here with regard to the feathered world, 

 those beautiful, merry nations, which seem de- 

 signed by Heaven as a kind of soothers and soft- 

 eners of the chagrin and melancholy of human 

 life, and a sort of counterbalance for the dull, 

 the sour and the gloomy parts of the animal cre- 

 ation. What eye is not struck with those lovely 

 nations of singers ! What ear is not ravished 

 with the charms of their melody ! We say, after 

 the French, that he who has no taste for music, 

 has no soul. I must confess, I think he has a 

 very strange one, or that it is hampered under 



