" Vou cannot with a scalpel Jind the poet's soul. 

 Nor yet the iirild bird's song." 



Edited by MRS. MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT and WILLIAM DUTCHER 



Communications relating to the work of the Audubon and other Bird Protective Societies should 

 be addressed to Mrs. Wright, at Fairfield, Conn. Reports, etc., designed for this department, should bft 

 sent at least one month prior to the date of publication. 



Wild Hedges 



Much of the work on behalf of bird-pro- 

 tection today is not so much the conceiving 

 of new ideas as of repeating and insisting 

 upon certain fundamental needs. For every 

 time we say hands off we should say food 

 and shelter at least ten times. 



Shelter of bird-houses and lunch-counter 

 viands belong either with our mid-winter 

 thoughts or early spring preparations; but, 

 when the season is fairly on us and the sap 

 begins to ascend in the veins of both plants 

 and men, and we wait for the first willow 

 wand, food and shelter mean trees, then we 

 cry anew. Plant trees, vines, bushes, wild 

 hedges, — anything that has sheltering leaf 

 and edible berry! 



If the plan is to be well conceived and 

 carried out, it implies much thinking, as in a 

 region of fruit farms or gardens it is not 

 enough to plant at random; a wild counter- 

 attraction must be supplied the entire fruit 

 season from the ripening of the earliest 

 strawberries to the grape picking. While 

 certain berry-bearers are valuable for their 

 winter food, supply such as the red cedar, 

 juniper, bittersweet, black alder, Virginia 

 creeper, catbrier, the sumachs and frost 

 grapes. The " protective " summer berries, 

 those that if planted in accessible seclusion 

 may reasonably be expected to at least 

 partly deter Robins, Catbirds, Thrashers, 

 etc., from the fruit garden, must have spe- 

 cial consideration. With people owning 

 large tracts of land, tree- and bush-plant- 

 ing is comparatively easy, and everything 

 may be done on a large scale; but it is the 

 small home-garden, often over-neat and 

 prim, that needs to offer hospitable shelter; 

 so let us consider how this can be done 

 as cheaply and expeditiously as possible. 



If the boundary be a wire or picket-fence, 



( 



first secure the cooperation — or at least con- 

 sent — of your next-door neighbor, so that 

 you may not injure some favorite flower- 

 bed that needs sun; then make the list of 

 trees, shrubs and vines needed, the quantity 

 of course, to depend upon the space. Keep 

 one thing in mind from the beginning: you 

 must let this wild hedge grow into a veri- 

 table jungle if you wish to get the best 

 results, and all ideas of neatness and prim, 

 set form must be cast to the winds. Dead 

 wood may be occasionally removed, but be 

 wary of doing that too often. 



As for vines, give them something on 

 which to drape themselves and let them 

 alone to grow upside down if they will, 

 thereby increasing in beauty and offering 

 more nesting nooks. One of the most awk- 

 ward spectacles I ever saw was a giant vine 

 of the waxwork, or bittersweet, one of the 

 most persistent of spiral climbers, fastened 

 tight and flat to a green latticed trellis. 

 Every tendril seemed bound to squirm itself 

 free, and the whole effect was as awkward 

 as that of a man with his head turned over 

 one shoulder and trying to walk backward. 

 For the taller shrubs and trees to be 

 placed next the fence (or, if fence there is 

 none, for the backbone of the hedge), choose 

 early sweet cherries, flowering dogwoods, 

 staghorn sumach, mountain-ash, Russian 

 mulberry, sheepberry, wild black cherry, 

 spicebush and shadbush (or service-berry), — 

 this last being valuable because of the early 

 ripening of the fruit in June. Next elder- 

 berries, wild plums, flowering raspberry, 

 barberries, currants, both black and red. 

 For vines, the smaller fruited varieties of 

 wild grapes (or Concords will do very well) 

 that may be easily grown in pots from seed 

 and set out when six months old, Virginia 

 ecreper, waxwork and the yellow Chinese 



149) 



