i'hotograpn by Wilbur Jf. :5initu 



PAYING A MIDWINTER VISIT 



This shows a bird visitor attracted by the lump of suet fastened to the old pear tree. 

 A lump of suet set in some convenient place is perhaps the surest way of securing bird 

 visitors in midwinter, for it is a food supply they greatly appreciate. 



The average house when surrounded by 

 proper planting almost invariably looks 

 better than if left to stand out cold and 

 hard and with base-line unbroken. Wind- 

 breaks may almost always be planted 

 somewhere, with benefit to the farm as 

 well as to the birds, while lanes may be 

 bordered with trees and shrubbery and 

 walls covered with vines without any 

 possible encroachment on the fields. An 

 old pasture planted with savin and white 

 pine, hawthorns, elders, barberries, cor- 

 nels, viburnums, and the like, may easily 

 be metamorphosed into a bird reserva- 

 tion and still be useful as a pasture. 



For deciduous growth to be used for 

 cover, choose those berry-bearing" trees 

 and shrubs wliose berries are most popu- 

 lar with the birds ; and, when possible, 

 choose also those that may oiTer most 

 convenient sites for nest-1;iuilding. 



SOMH USEFUT FOOD PLANTS 



Care must also be taken in the choice 

 of species, so as to get, if possible, a con- 

 tinuous supply of food, using such plants 

 as the cherry, mulberry, raspberry, blue- 

 berry, huckleberry, etc., for the summer 

 supply ; elder and the various kinds of 

 dogwood and viburnum, etc., for autumn : 

 while for winter choose those plants 

 which hold their fruit longest, such as 

 the hawthorn, buckthorn, mountain ash, 

 barberry, bayberry, sumach, wild rose, 

 and the like. 



Hedges, particularly if they are ever- 

 green, are favorite resorts for birds, both 

 in winter and summer, and an arbor-vitje 

 hedge is the best of them all. I remem- 

 ber such a hedge about one side of my 

 father's old - fashioned garden that in 

 summer invariably held its quota of rob- 

 ins', song sparrows', and chipping spar- 



i66 



