346 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
September, 1911 
A marle bearing six inhabited nesting-boxes 
for birds ing-tree. 
On this unique bird farm the convenience and comfort 
of the feathered tenants have everywhere been considered 
in developing the grounds. Nineteen acres of the estate in 
the neighborhood of the castle are laid out as a park; sixty 
acres are planted with thickets of shrubbery, chiefly of poplar 
and willow, for nesting-places for the birds. The bushes 
are specially pruned or tied in clusters to accommodate the 
nesting habits of the bird. ‘The rest of the estate is in 
forest. A lake near the castle furnishes an attractive 
residence for water-birds, and a little brook bordered with 
nest-filled shelter thickets winds through the grounds. 
The most essential part of the work of bird protection 
is to provide nesting-places, and over two thousand nesting- 
boxes are maintained and fitted out in the style preferred 
by the various bird families. Baron von Berlepsch is the 
inventor of a most successful type of bird-box that he 
developed after a detailed study of several hundred wood- 
pecker holes. He discovered that all of the woodpecker 
houses were built on the same plan, and conceived the idea 
of imitating their construction by the hand of man. He 
copied with infinite care the circular opening, always wisely 
inclining upward to keep out the rain, and always running 
down into the wood into a deep bottle-shaped cavity, and 
ending in the same pointed bowl. At first he fashioned the 
boxes laboriously by hand, but the demand for them grew 
so rapidly that a manufacturer was interested and elaborate 
machinery devised to manufacture the boxes in commercial 
quantities. There are now three or four factories making 
A clump of nesting-bushes containing eight nests, favorably placed 
for feathered tenants 
Hawthorn bush grown and pruned as a nest- 
Three nests on one bush 
An old linden with limbs cut into whorls for 
nest-sites 
them, and it was found necessary to trade-mark them to 
prevent spurious imitations from getting on the market and 
cheating the birds. For the feathered tenants are more 
particular than the city apartment-hunter, and if the box 
is not furnished exactly right, with just the right quantity 
of sawdust in the bottom, it will not be inhabited. It must 
be hung at just the right height from the ground, and 
inclined a little toward the opening, away from the wind. 
The Grand Duchy of Hesse, after investigating the Baron’s 
work, has installed 9,300 nesting-boxes, and the Prussian 
Board of Agriculture has issued a guide for the protection 
of birds. The City of Hamburg has a keeper of birds, 
appointed by the state, and his services are at the call of 
citizens who may want advice or assistance. 
The birds on the Seebach estate have on more than one 
occasion demonstrated their efhciency in protecting plant 
life. A wooded tract adjoining the von Berlepsch estate was 
one spring stripped bare of foliage by a moth pest, but 
the Baron’s woods, with their 2,000 nesting-boxes, were 
untouched. While whole neighborhoods suffered from 
caterpillars in their orchards, trees with nesting-boxes were 
unmolested. Fruit-growers in the neighboring villages were 
guick to learn their lesson, and now nearly every garden and 
orchard in the surrounding country has its nesting-boxes. 
Extensive shrubbery plantations have been made at See- 
cach solely for nesting-places for the birds that house in 
the open. The bushes that branch out strongly after pru- 
ning, that keep away vermin by their thorns, and thrive well 
A nesting-hedge of small bushes pruned into nest-holders, and nesting- 
box on a tree 
