HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 113 



The scythe may be as great an exterminator of such birds, as the gun of the 

 fowler. The song-sparrows build their nest upon the ground, in the most 

 familiar places, where they can feel secure from disturbance. Not a rod 

 from our dwellings these little birds may have their nests, if the right con- 

 ditions are there. They are commonly built on the side of a mound, where 

 the grasses and mosses are overrun with blackberry vines aud wild rose 

 bushes. Familiar as they are, they do not nestle among exotics. He who 

 would entice them to breed in his enclosures must not be too particular in 

 preserving that kind of neatness in his grounds, which consists in eradicating 

 every native shrub and wild briar, as a useless weed. 



Hedge-rows, though often ignorantly supposed to be the nurseries of birds, 

 are really great checks to their multiplication. A hedge-row cannot be well 

 maintained without care in keeping its roots clear of grass and other her- 

 bage, which are important to their wants ; and the habit of clipping it ren- 

 ders it almost barren of fruit. I am inclined to think that, for picturesque 

 effects, no less than for the benefit of the birds, the most desirable fence is 

 one made of rough small timber passed through upright posts. I would then 

 encourage the growth of all kinds of native shrubbery, on each side of it, form- 

 ing a miscellaneous hedge, the more agreeable because unshorn by art. It 

 is this spontaneous growth of shrubbery and other wild plants that consti- 

 tutes one of the picturesque charms of the old New England stonewall. We 

 seldom see one that is not covered on each side, more or less, with roses, 

 brambles, spiraea, viburnums and other native vines and shrubs, so that in 

 some of our open fieids, the stone-walls, with their accompaniment of vines, 

 flowers and shrubbery are the most attractive objects in the landscape. 

 Along the base of these walls, where the plough does not reach, nature calls 

 out the rue-leaved anemone, the violet, the cranesbill, the bell-wort, the deli- 

 cate pink convolvulus, and many other native flowers of exceeding beauty, 

 while the rest of the field is devoted to tillage. 



An ignorant agricultural boor, whose mind was never taught to stray be- 

 yond the barn-yard or potato patch, might grudge nature this narrow strip 

 on each side of his fences, though she never fails to crowd it with beauty. 

 I have seen indeed intelligent farmers who seemed to consider it an offence 

 against neatness and order to allow nature these little privileges, and who 

 employed their hired men to keep down every plant that dared to peep out 

 from underneath the fence, without a license from the cultivator. By en- 

 couraging this miscellaneous growth of- woody and herbaceous plants on each 

 side of every rustic fence, we provide an important means of security for the 

 birds, and supply them, in the close vicinity of our dwellings, with an abun- 

 dance of those seeds and berries which are necessary for their subsistence. 

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