23 



each way. This plantation should be kept cultivated and 

 weeded at first, and even watered, if necessary, and if rabbits 

 are abundant it may be well to surround it at first with a 

 fence of wire netting. Later a few pollarded firs or some 

 Norway spruces, currants and gooseberries are planted, and 

 once in three or four years, until nine years have elapsed, 

 the woods and other bushes, except the outer hedge, are closely 

 pruned in such a way as to make them send out a dense 

 growth of many whorls which offer excellent nesting places 

 for birds. 



The entire plan of the plantation is fully described and 

 illustrated in the English translation of a small volume en- 

 titled "How to Attract and Protect Wild Birds," by Martin 

 Heismann, translated by Emma Buchheim, and sold at cost 

 by the National Association of Audubon Societies, 1974 Broad- 

 way, New York City. 



The currants and gooseberries should not be used in Massa- 

 chusetts, as plants of the genus Ribes are hosts of the destruc- 

 tive pine blister-rust, which cannot propagate itself without 

 them. In Massachusetts the Japanese barberry, Berberis 

 thunbergii, might be used instead. It is a thorny plant, will 

 bear pruning, has a dense foliage, and will grow to a large 

 size. Experimental planting of such shelter woods should be 

 tried in this country. There are many native plants and trees 

 and some garden shrubs that might be used for these planta- 

 tions. Some of them might be selected from the lists herein- 

 before given. Those who have large estates and the means 

 for unlimited planting may thus provide shelter for thrushes, 

 catbirds, towhees, sparrows and bush-nesting warblers. 



Every small home garden should have a wild hedge next 

 the fence which should be allowed to grow into a veritable 

 jungle. Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright describes such a hedge in 

 "Bird-Lore." ^ She recommends for the taller shrubs and trees 

 •to be placed next the fence, or for the backbone of the hedge 

 early sweet cherries, flowering dogwood, staghorn sumac, moun- 

 tain ash, Russian mulberry, sheepberry, wild black cherry, 

 spicebush and shadbush or Juneberry. Next, elderberries, 

 wild plums, flowering raspberry, barberries and currants.^ For 



1 Bird-Lore, Vol. VII, No. 2, March-April, 1905, p. 149. 



2 Currants should be omitted, as hereinbefore stated, on account of the blister-rust. 



