58 



Sympatht/ of Birds. 



Vol. XII. 



are not growing, it will probably rot thein 

 by becotning sta£jnant and putrid. Trees 

 should be planted therefore, so that the 

 water will run over and off the roots, which 

 is all they require to afford them nourish- 

 ment. 



Watering the head and body of a tree 

 that is tardy in puttino- forth its shoots, is 

 the safest, and indeed the only sure mode of 

 bringing them out, while a continued water- 

 ing of the roots is almost sure destruction to 

 them. 



Trees planted on a south wall or fence, 

 that do not put out shoots in due season, 

 should be covered for several hours when 

 the sun is out, if the weather be warm. The 

 leaves may be considered a sort of suction 

 pump, which draws up the moisture from 

 its roots and produces its mcreased growth, 

 whereas a tree without leaves, and that is 

 not already attached to the ground, has no 

 means of carrying off the moisture fi-om the 

 roots. For example, of two branches of 

 equal size and weight, the one with leaves 

 and the other without them, are placed in 

 vessels containing an equal quantity of wa- 

 ter, and exposed to the sun, the one having 

 leaves will take up the greater part of the 

 liquid, while the other will consume com- 

 paratively little. 



Some ten years ago, I imported from Paris 

 210 pear trees on quince stocks, whose roots, 

 on their arrival, 1 found to be entirely black 

 and dead. I shaved off with a drawing knife 

 all the roots down to the stump. These I 

 planted in trenches, tying them to cross-bars 

 to keep them firm, and then filled up the 

 trench with good soil. The heads and bo- 

 dies of those trees were regularly washed 

 in dry weather until they began to sprout, 

 which most of them did in abundance du- 

 ring the summer, and I finally saved out of 

 the whole number, 174, which became as 

 well rooted and as good trees as any in my 

 garden. 



This has happened more than once. Three 

 or four years ago, I imported among other 

 trees, twenty plum trees, from six to seven 

 feet high, the heads of which had been bud- 

 ded the previous year in France. These 

 buds had grown from nine to twelve inches 

 long, and were perfectly fresh when they 

 arrived; but the roots on examination were 

 found entirely dead. Two of these I gave 

 away. (3no was good for nothing, and the 

 other seventeen I planted in my garden, 

 having cut out all the roots that had fibres, 

 they being entirely dead. One of my men 

 said I might as well plant my walking-stick. 

 Sixteen of these are now flourishing trees, 

 well grown and well rooted, new roots being 



induced by means of washing the upper part 

 of the tree. 



Re/narks. — The foreLi^oing will please such 

 of our readers as like plain, sensible advice, 

 frotn a thoroughly practical man. We have 

 ourselves seen with great surprise and satis- 

 faction the trees referred to as having been 

 so successfully transplanted by Mr. Perkins, 

 under what were the most un'avoiirable cir- 

 cumstances. The great advantage of the 

 mode he practices, of watering the bark, 

 and not watering the roots of a tree, in a 

 half dorujant .'^tate, our correspondent tho- 

 roughly convinced us of in his own garden. 

 Our readers are solicited to put in practice 

 the invaluable advice he gives them. There 

 is no doubt that half the trees that die an- 

 nually from the ignorance of transplanters, 

 perish from a mistaken notion of deluging 

 their roots with water daily, when their 

 fibres are so feeble as to dread it as much 

 as a patient afflicted with the hydrophobia. — 

 Downine''s Horticulturist. 



Sympathy of Birds. 



A GENTLEMAN of OUT acquaintance, a week 

 or two since, remarked an unusual collection 

 of brown thrushes in a thicket contiguous to 

 his residence. His attention having been 

 drawn toward them for several successive 

 days by their loud cries and eccentric move- 

 ments, he was at length induced to investi- 

 gate more closely the cause of this unwonted 

 congress of his feathered tenants, and ascer- 

 tain if possible the cause of their excite- 

 ment. Upon exauiining the thicket he dis- 

 covered a female thrush suspended by one 

 wing to a limb. Near by was her nest con- 

 taining several half grown birds. 

 . From the attendant circmustance he im- 

 mediately concluded, that the maternal bird 

 must have become entangled before the pro- 

 cess of incubation was completed, and that 

 some kindly hearted neighbour had supplied 

 her place in hatching and brooding her cal- 

 low off-spring. He withdrew a tew rods and 

 the committee of relief immediately resumed 

 the self-imposed duty of administering "aid 

 and comfort," in the form of worms and 

 other insects, alternating between the mo- 

 ther and her young — she, meanwhile, cheer- 

 ing them on in their labour of love with the 

 peculiar note which first led to the discovery 

 of her situation. 



Having watched this exhibition of charity 

 for some half hour, our informant relieved 

 the mother bird. She immediately flew to 

 her nest, expressing her gratitude by her 

 sweetest notes. Her charitable friends, their 

 "occupation now being gone," — as the police 



