September, 1909 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
$5.3 
Birds and the Country Home 
By E. P. Powell 
COUNT the birds into my family, and con- 
sider that they earn their living quite as much 
as I do myself. For that matter, they own 
e]/ the property by just as good a right as my 
%@ deed. When they get here in the spring the 
Ws catbirds deliberately divide up my nine acres 
between their six or eight families. Each 
family occupies its own section, does most of its hunting 
there, and its singing. I am persuaded that, taking it all in 
all, the birds are as profitable to me as my hens. They do 
not give me eggs for market, but they enable me to grow 
fruit for market, beside adding immensely to the pleasure 
of my homestead. I am sure that I could not get on without 
bird associates in running my orchard and fruit garden. I 
watch the hundred of birds, working with all their might 
during three or four months, and every one of them looking 
upon my enemies as a victim. [he number of slugs, bugs, 
moths and worms destroyed in a single day on my nine acres 
I know to count up into the tens of thousands. It leaves me 
enough to do after them, but my labor alone would be in- 
effectual in many departments of horticulture. The logical 
consequence is this, that as an economic movement I can do 
nothing better than to make the birds at home with me. In 
order to do this I must, first of all, attend to the making my 
own surroundings attractive to them. Then I refuse to allow 
any habits to grow up which disturb or annoy the birds. 
Finally, having gathered them about me, I make sure that 
they have their quota of food, and especially during those 
periods when the least is provided by Nature. If they take 
more than their share of cherries and black raspberries, and 
a few other things, it is my business to see to it that I get my 
own proportion. At least, I will not rob them. When I 
cover forty out of my sixty cherry trees with mosquito net- 
ting, I leave twenty for the robins and catbirds. 
Hedges and shrubbery, especially such dense-growing 
bushes as Tartarian honeysuckle and mock orange, and 
hedges made of arbor-vite and hemlock, are soon discovered 
by the birds, and utilized by them for homes. I have eight 
or nine nests of catbirds every year, and I find that their 
nests are always in very nearly the same place, although 
hidden with remarkable skill. The song sparrows are here 
in large numbers always, and the enumeration of robins 
would be impossible. There are four of their nests under 
my balconies and in the vines that clamber my house. Blue- 
birds and indigo birds are about equally plentiful, and the 
scarlet tanager has come into friendly neighborhood with 
the wood thrush and Wilson’s thrush. These thrushes are 
generally very shy of houses, and can be found only in the 
edges of the woods; but I have them building and whistling 
within a few rods of the house. The rose-breasted gros- 
beak and the redstart flit through the foliage everywhere; 
and, although I do not like him, the oriole is certainly a won- 
derfully beautiful creature. The purple finch and the yellow 
warbler find comfortable nesting-places about my lawns, and 
wrens divide up the cozy corners of my porches with the 
robins. In other words, we try to have just the right sort 
of homestead ready for the birds to build in, adding to the 
arbors and hedges a few artificial boxes for the bluebirds 
and wrens. ‘They sing all day long, by turns, and the cat- 
birds become so familiar that they will call me through the 
windows to talk with them. After the first of August these 
birds rarely sing, but they do like to talk prose with you. 
A gun we must have, but it is used as infrequently as 
possible, so that the birds may not be disturbed with ex- 
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plosive sounds. It is rarely fired except to kill a red squirrel 
or a crow. It is a pity, but all the same it is true, that this 
very pretty squirrel has no sympathy with his neighbors, and 
not a bit of compunction about breaking up birds’ nests. He 
eats every young bird that he can find or catch unprotected, 
and then to this mischief he adds the destruction of pears 
and sweet apples to get at the seeds. The birds make a din 
when a squirrel appears, and we soon pick him out with the 
gun—sorry, but can’t help it. Crows we can rarely get at, 
for they are cunning enough to come early in the morning, 
before human folks are abroad, and they are out of sight 
as soon as a door swings. They manage to do a deal of 
mischief breaking up robins’ nests. I have seen them picking 
these dainty morsels out of their homes, and flying away 
with them in their beaks. The Government Bulletins have 
very nice words to speak for the crow, but he has no place 
in our bird paradise. There are two more birds that get no 
welcome. ‘The English sparrow is everywhere about us, and 
is noisy just across the street, but he so well knows that we 
have no welcome for him that he rarely flies into our lines. 
You can get rid of him permanently only by harsh measures. 
We never allow him to nest in our trees or our houses, and 
we never feed him. His pugnacious habits are intolerable, 
and he will manage to do as much mischief in fruit or grain 
as a whole flock of honest birds will do good. We are of 
the same opinion concerning blackbirds, and they have found 
it out, so that they rarely intrude. In Florida the red- 
winged blackbird has a welcome on account of his superb 
choral songs. It is the only bird that I know that sings in 
chorus. By the way, if crows pull your corn, set up three 
or four poles about the field with an ear of corn tied to the 
top of each. He is so suspicious that he is more afraid of a 
gift than of a gun, and he will stay rigidly out of a corn- 
field where free corn is offered him. 
I am fully in sympathy with the anti-cat crusade. You 
can not have cats roaming about and have your birds happy. 
It is true that a beautiful cat is a beautiful creature, and some 
of them know enough to be almost indispensable about the 
house and fields. If you happen to have one of these really 
admirable felines, do as I do with mine; build a small house, 
a cat palace I call it, two stories high, with a back yard and 
a front yard, and cover the whole over with wire netting. 
Put pussy in there early in May, as soon as the birds begin 
to build, and keep her there until the middle of September. 
Feed her well, of course, and occasionally take her out for a 
petting. She is an incurable enemy of the birds, and it is to 
the marauding of these petted animals that we owe the larger 
part of the destruction of the best helpers that we have. The 
birds are never easy when puss in abroad, but they very 
quickly learn when she is in retirement. This plan works no 
pain to the cat, although she is very fond of roving; make 
the house big enough for her to tramp about, and, if pos- 
sible, let her have a companion. 
Those who grow fruit, especially cherries and berries, will 
challenge me as to the value of some of our songsters. The 
answer is, plant for bird food as surely as you do for your 
own food; and among the best trees for this purpose are 
wild cherries, mountain ash, service bush, high bush cran- 
berry and the barberries. The viburnun, or high bush cran- 
berry, draws that splendid bird the pine grosbeak, together 
with flocks of cedar birds, in midwinter. A half dozen 
trees of mountain ash will do wonders, not only for your 
own birds in autumn, but for birds of passage all through 
October and November. They will drop down on your 
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