FOREST AND STREAM. 



117 



GROUSE HUNTING IN GRASS. 



* , 



Lawrence, Kansas, September 18, 1873. 

 Editor op Forest and Stream:— 



IT has been only a short time since we (of the Winkle 

 Club) were first delighted by the clear, handsome, heathly 

 look of the Forest and Stream, and it has filled to our 

 perfect satisfaction a long felt want, i. e., a paper devoted 

 to "the true, beautiful and good," in field sports, and en- 

 tirely free from the "professional" taint which so wofully 

 infects the horsey journals of the day. 



As the season for shooting Grouse (vulgo, prairie chickens) 

 over dogs, is rapidly drawing to a close, some of your 

 Eastern readers may be interested in knowing what we have 

 for sport in Kansas; so with your permission. I will give 

 the result of two day's shooting of our club, named in honor 

 of that devoted and illustrious {sportsman, Nathaniel Win- 

 kle, Esq. Fortunately we have as a leading member, Major 

 E. of the L. L. & G. B. R., a prince of good fellows, who has 

 at his command a car fitted up with berths, and all that is 

 necessary for the comfort of man and dog, by day or night, 

 which is often kindly placed at the disposal of the club. As 

 you may imagine, nothing can exceed the comfort of this 

 style of going shooting; at least so eight of us thought as 

 we rattled away from the station here on the night of 

 August 20th, armed and provisioned as the law directs. 

 In fact, as an English friend who was one of the party said, 

 "it was awful jolly," the only drawback being the thought 

 that we had but three good dogs, the rest being young and 

 out for the first time. 



With the good company and our anticipations for the 

 morrow, it was impossible to sleep, so smoke and song and 

 story kept us up till after 12 o'clock, when to give our 

 nerves a little chance, we turned in. At three the sleepy 

 ones were routed out with the cry, "time to get up, nearly 

 there," and in a few minutes we stopped and were switched 

 on a siding at Colony Station, sixty-eight miles south of 

 Lawrence, in the midst of a splendid expanse of prairie, 

 with here and there a small stream, along which an occa- 

 sional farm affords the birds a stubble field as a rallying 

 point. The Major had telegraphed ahead and we found 

 wagons and breakfast in readiness; the latter was soon dis- 

 patched, and just as the first faint blush of morning tinted 

 the sky, we were oif . 



Ah! the beauty of that morning! the soft, fresh breeze, 

 the miles and miles of beautiful waving grass, covering the 

 rolling swells of the prairie, with here and there a faint 

 blue line of smoke curling up from the chimneys of the 

 scattered farm houses. Every breath of air pure and sweet, 

 and the heart full of thankfulness for so beautiful a world. 

 But soon our first stubble is reached, and quickly both 

 men and dogs are out, and hardly have they entered the 

 field, before the old dogs are drawing and standing. Away 

 go the birds, the old cocks leading with a whirr and a rush 

 that startles the novice and quickens the blood of the oldest 

 veteran. As the stubble is quite bare of cover, it takes only 

 a few shots to send all the birds out to the grass, and pair- 

 ing off, we follow them up and the day's work begins. Every 

 moment the sharp report and the floating feathers tell of 

 the death of some brave old cock, or tender youngster, 

 whose life leaves him in the air. How bravely sometimes 

 the old fellows will wheel and swing across, and when we 

 miss we can not help shouting "well done, good bird." 



By nine o'clock we begin to feel a little tired, and the hot 

 sun is telling on all of us ; so we quit and rattling back to 

 the Station, a rush is made for the car and the claret 

 punches suffer. Wiping out the guns, resting and dinner 

 take up the time till four o'clock, when we are again ready 

 for the fray and shoot till dark. 



All the many incidents and accidents, things wise and 

 otherwise, I can only leave to the imagination ; suffice it to 

 say, thus did the Winkles on the morning and evening of 

 the first day, likewise the second, when the bag was counted; 

 and notwithstanding the greenness of the young dogs, we 

 had 326 birds, which as we were in the field only about 

 nine hours each day, was not bad. On the 5th September, 

 four of us went in the same way to the same ground, and 



bagged 138, 



Just after writing the above I read your "stave" on 

 "Grouse Shooting" in No. 5, and beg leave to notice one or 

 two points. In the first place all of your friends ' 'out West" 

 don't say ' 'chickens" when they mean Grouse, and if con- 

 stant prodding will do any good, the number of those who 

 do, will diminish every season. 



You speak of the birds "getting up quickly," "flying in 

 a straight line over the tops of the scrub oaks," &c, and 

 also that there is no use for a dog. Well, that may be the 

 way in what you call "scrub oak prairie," but as our Teu 

 tonic friend says, "we don't got no" scrub oak prairie here, 

 and I am glad of it, because in our prairie grass an old 

 cock will nine times in ten give you a twenty-five or thirty 

 yards rise and go off as if he had been kicked. Now I 

 don't mean to say that they are hard to kill, in comparison 

 with several other varieties of game, but if anybody, in 

 September or October, "drives out an empty wagon at day- 

 light" without a dog, and don't come back till he fills it, I 

 advise Mm to learn to whistle, "Do they miss me at home" 

 just for recreation. 



As to charges, I find in a No. 12 Powell that 3i drs. pow- 

 der and l£ oz. shot, No. 7, will do the work nicely. 



Our quail shooting begins October 1st legally, but prac- 

 ticaly not till November 1st, as many of the birds 

 are not full grown and strong till then. In quail shoot- 

 ing, Kansas can in my opinion "lead all the rest," I 

 have shot them in Virginia, Maryland, and Missouri, and 

 have never seen as good shooting as we have, and if you 

 are not too much bored by this I may write you what the 

 Winkles do on quail. Very truly yours, H. 



foadhnd, W%wn and %mdm. 



BULBS AND THEIR USES. 



The Hyacinth. 



" Who splashed with red the sumach hedge — 



The sassafras with purple stain; 

 Gave ivy leaves a ruby edge, 



And painted all their stems again. 



"Discolored every hazel copse, 



And stricken all the pasture lands, 

 Flung veils across the mountain tops. 



And bound their feet with yellow bands. 



"Is this September come so soon ? 



Full time doth summer ne'er abide ? 

 While yet it seems but summer's noon 



We're floating down the autumn tide." 



—Atlantic Monthly. 



FIFTY years ago, but little attention was paid to the 

 culture of the bulb family, compared to what there is 

 at the present day. Scarcely any one thought much of 

 planting in the fall of the year, the beautiful Hyacinthe, 

 and if they could obtain a tolerable good bloom of this 

 flower in the spring, with much care, they were amply sat- 

 isfied with their efforts.* Now, the case is entirely changed, 

 and a steadily increasing interest in the culture of this flow- 

 er has been one of the studies, as well as amusements, of 

 the amateur gardener and true lover of flowers. Our lady 

 friend was right, when she exclaimed, "Are not these beau- 

 tiful?" They were so, most emphatically, and the produc- 

 tion of twenty Hyacinths, in full bloom, of the different 

 colors and most choice varieties, as far back as the year 

 1837, was an achievement in floriculture not often witnessed, 

 when you consider the little practical knowledge then pos- 

 sessed, compared with the present high state of cultivation 

 and knowledge of ' 'how to plant and cultivate the Hya- 

 cinth of to-day." These bulbs were planted in the October 

 of 1837, on a mellow, Indian summer day, when the warm 

 rays of the declining sun made genial and beautiful all the 

 landscape around. Our lady friend was one of those few 

 persons, in those days, who made good use of her eyes and 

 ears, and had a keen appreciation of the beautiful, as re- 

 vealed in the adornment and decoration of this " flower- 

 mosaic'd earth." Success, if deemed within the possible, 

 did not deter her from undertaking what necessarily in- 

 volved care and watchfulness, and was to her a new field 

 of labor; but she entered with a good will to her work of 

 planting bulbs, and she says, in a letter to us: "My fall 

 planting of the Hyacinth resulted in a perfect success. I 

 shall try the old, never-die-out Dutch tulips next fall, and 

 will give you an account of my failure, or success, for I am 

 one of the few that believe it to be honorable, as well as 

 pleasant, for ladies to know how to grow plants and flow- 

 ers." From this period she was a most skillful and success- 

 ful flower culturist, and has given to the world many inter- 

 esting facts, as the result of her persevering efforts to culti- 

 vate well a few flowers. 



Every one at all acquainted with the Pestalozian system 

 of education, taught many years ago, will recollect the sen- 

 tence written over the school-room door of Mr. Venable's 

 academy: "Whatman has done, man may do." So, at 

 the request of our lady friends, we place before them this 

 article upon the "Fall Planting of Bulbs." Not that we 

 do not well know that, to many of them, we are only telling 

 an old story over again, yet, unlike the writing upon the 

 rocks, f we say a few words to them, and hope to cheer 

 and encourage them to persevere in their search after the 

 knowledge of the hidden beautiful. 



Beautiful indeed, on a bright and balmy morning of 

 spring, is a walk in our garden, among the flowers, the 

 birds, and not least our newly blooming Hyacinths, tulips, 

 and their numberless companions. Glorious spring has un- 

 sealed their petals; their opening leaves utter to our ears 

 no audible sound; we hear not their silent voice, as they 

 rise in speechless worship of the Maker of the Universe. 

 But we behold in them a silent epic of beauty, all glowing 

 in their peculiar and diversified loveliness. 



But, to the practical portion of our bulb plants, we will 

 append a few suggestions, gathered from along and patient 

 study, as well as practical experience, of the treatment nec- 

 essary to ensure a good bloom of the Hyacinth and other 

 bulbs. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth well do- 

 ing. The preparation of the ground plot, the particular 

 place in the garden or on the lawn, is the first considera- 

 tion our lady gardeners should notice. Having secured 

 this — always making their selections in such locations as 

 shall give them full sunlight — (for the Hyacinth loves not 

 the shade, and will droop its head and yield only a weak, 

 sickly, green abortion, unless cared for and carefully treat- 

 ed) you will study the character of the natural size of the 

 plant, you now propose to cultivate. "How did this 

 splendid old purple bulb, which I now hold in my hand, 

 grow in its nursery in Holland? Of what was its earth-bed 

 composed?" This is the first question you are to answer in 

 your practical attempt to make a bed for your bulbs. Hav- 

 ing thus decided that an abundance of sun and air are in- 

 di&pensaibte requisites to success; also, your bed should not 



*We well recollect the triumphant exclamation of a lady thirty years 

 ago, upon her having succeeded well in raising good blooms from bulbs 

 of the Hyacinth, planted in the fall. "My friends told me my bulbs 

 would all freeze, to death during the winter. Have they done so? No 

 indeed. Are not these beautiful;'" 



t" Writing upon the rocks, 1 ' a reference to that public desecration of 

 all good taste that defaces, with wi-etched quack notices and advertise- 

 ments of \vorthless nostrums, all along our river's banks; which enters 

 all our parks and public places of resort, and may even be found at our 

 church doors. It is time this nuisance was suppressed. Will not the 

 Forest and Stream " give these violators of lost good sense and good 

 taste a lash from the old whip?" 



be in too dry a location. The family of bulbs, all of them, 

 require a certain amount of moisture, and must have it. 

 The soil generally is not of a quality or condition to receive 

 these bulbs without preparation; therefore, we must make 

 an artificial soil for them. This can easily be done with 

 care, a good, well-drained bed being the chief requisite to 

 success. This bed should contain twenty-five to thirty 

 inches of a good prepared soil, and, as before remarked, be 

 well drained; without good bottom drainage it is impossible 

 to raise good flowers. 



The manner in which we generally make our beds for 

 bulbs, and we think it a very good way indeed, is as fol- 

 lows, viz. : We dig our pit, as we term it, of the size and 

 shape we fancy for our bulbs. First we remove one spit- 

 ting of the black loam, or top soil, placing the same in a 

 handy position near by; then we next remove from the first 

 all the yellow loam, stones, sand, and gravels of any kind, 

 until we have made our pit the full depth we require. This 

 being done, the nature of the soil revealed by this process 

 determines, in a manner, your future treatment. If you 

 strike at the bottom of the pit, an uncongenial, stiff, cold, 

 clay, you require a very good drainage. Some gardeners 

 recommend in this case going from six to eight inches 

 deeper, and filling up with stones, &c, for . drainage. (I 

 think their reasoning good.) By so doing you are 

 easily relieved of all superfluous water. We have, with 

 good effect, made a sort of pavement, leaving crevices for 

 the passage of water between, and in some very wet loca- 

 tions can recommend the same as one of the best kinds of 

 drainage for the Hyacinth, tulip, and other bulbs. 



The soil for this bed should be composed of equal parts of 

 loam, or leaf mould (leaf mould from the woods) clean 

 sand, and old, well rotted cow manure, no matter how old, 

 if well soaked and pulverized; or the soil, in lieu of this, 

 may be taken from an old, spent, disused hot-bed. This 

 latter is. by some skillful culturists, preferred to cow ma- 

 nure, as it is made ready to their hands. One word as to 

 sand: This should be a clear, free grit, and a little coarse; 

 sea sand will do, but the saltness should be washed out, or 

 soaked and dried well before using, as salt is sometimes too 

 strong for this use. Bulbs generally are very impatient of 

 salt. 



You will now replace again in your pit the soil or black 

 loam first removed from the same, and fill up to within six 

 or seven inches of the surface; now place your prepared 

 soil upon the same and fill up, say four inches above the 

 original surface of the ground, and nicely round up the 

 same. 



Now you can plant your bulbs, as your taste may sug- 

 gest in belt lines around your plot, according to the ribbon 

 or belt style, being careful to study the harmonious effect of 

 color in the arrangement of the same. You can, if you 

 prefer, set three plants of the Hyacinth in groups — a red, 

 blue, and white. The effect is quite pleasing, and you can 

 make this still more effective, by planting three whites, 

 three blues, and three reds in just the same relationship to 

 each other as the single bulb arrangement. Various forms 

 will quite naturally suggest themselves to any lady of good 

 taste. In the same bed with Hyacinths may be planted low 

 tulips, to fill up the spaces, but, to our own mind, we ad- 

 mire the stately Hyacinth in all its pride and beauty. 

 We do not consider it in accordance with good taste to mix 

 in these plots different varieties of bulbs. 



In planting your bulbs you can, with safety, place them 

 out in open beds and grounds as late as the last of Octo- 

 ber, or, in fact, to a later date in the fall, with good success. 



I once planted out some twenty-five bulbs of Hyacinths 

 and two dozen large tulips on the 20th of November, when 

 I had to break the crust off the ground with a bar. They 

 were in as fine condition and bloom the next season as 

 those set in the month of October. 



When planting the Hyacinth in October, we advise plant- 

 ing the bulbs about' four inches below the surface of the 

 ground, and we have found our account in using a trans- 

 planting trowel, making a clean hole and placing firmty me 

 bulb, and then filling up the hole with sand. In the sp'ing 

 the bulbs came up straight, and we have found f ewe' de- 

 cayed or rotten bulbs with this process than by any ther. 



A bulb bed, made according to the above direction will . 

 last, without disturbing or removing the bulbs, for jev eraJ 

 years and give good flowers, particularly the tulip Du f W* 

 prefer to remove the bulbs after flowering, as w ,nare * a 

 idea that we get better flowers from re-planting. ^ e n ^ 

 hardy varieties should always be taken up onth-* rst s^S^ 

 frost. These may be re-planted in the spri' an( * w 

 give a good strong flower. 



One of our best bulb culturists, Mr. Band, y S: "Grow 

 the foliage weak;" and our own experienee ias oeen ' our 

 best flowers to replant are those whose leave^ ave P er f ecteo - 

 themselves in the most thorough manner. ^ ect * or y° ur 

 fall planting those bulbs only that show tl most vi g° rous 

 ripened leaves, and the bulbs should be sc in October— any 

 time during the month. About the fire of December, if 

 not before, your bulb bed should be c' ered t0 tlie de P th 

 of three or four inches with coarse str^y litter * rom tne 

 stable, to prevent freezing. 



The Hyacinth, tulip, and many otfc" t> ulbs S row , in * he 

 winter months, and if you would behold a fine exhibition 

 of one of the great laws of nature take a Hyacinth bulb 

 and cut the same open in the middl in mid- winter, and ex- 

 amine it with a powerful microscope, and you will see the 

 perfect flower, imbedded deep dovn in the bulb. With a 

 very fine glass you may even se3 the colors of the bulb. ^ If 

 the weather in the spring is not too cold, the covering 

 should be removed from the hub, and after its removal, if 

 you fear a cold, frosty night, it would be well to cover 



