August, 1916 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
13 
imation. Grazing sheep and skit- 
tering squirrels had the first pre- 
ference, but nowadays any good 
park superintendent keeps a big 
menagerie. In his stables and 
pens are quantities of ornamental 
pets and poultry — peacocks, 
swans, and ducks galore. I am 
not referring now to the zoologi- 
cal gardens where collections 
of exotic curiosities are kept 
in cages, but simply to the 
systematic breeding, rearing, 
and keeping of specimens to en- 
liven the fields and waters of the 
ordinary parks. Three or four 
good swans on the little lake add 
immeasurably to its pictorial 
charm and please the grown-ups 
as well as the children. Flocks of 
parti-colored ducks are only less 
interesting. The use of such ma- 
terials in private gardens in America has been 
rare, but may be most cordially recommended 
for places of a certain size. 
One related line of action has indeed struck 
the popular fancy in this country. This is 
the encouragement of bird life. Splendid 
parks have been set apart as bird sanctuaries, 
some of them comprising only an acre or 
two, others covering many square miles. 
These establishments deserve the warmest 
encouragement, not alone because they pro- 
vide a place of refuge for the birds, but still 
more because they will soon become havens of 
refuge for men and women also. They will 
be gardens in which all creatures may live 
unafraid and in which there will be restored 
some of the peace and confidence of the primal 
paradise. There is a most fundamental 
fitness in the whole proceeding when a nature- 
lover like Mr. Baynes joins with a poet like 
Mr. McKaye to establish a bird sanctuary 
dedicating the place with ceremonies of poetry 
and drama. 
Almost every garden can be a bird refuge. 
The primary choice seems to lie between cats 
and birds, but if something can be done about 
the former there are many good practical 
ways of attracting the latter. Bird houses 
may be made a telling feature of the garden 
even when considered solely for their orna- 
mental effect. In many gardens they have 
been built for this purpose singly and without 
any care whether they were 
ever inhabited or not. But 
if the purple martins come, 
or the wrens or the blue- 
birds, they make the gar- 
den immediately a place 
of life and interest and 
many times more agreea- 
ble to the human folks 
who pretend to own it. 
About the most effec- 
tive way to encourage 
the company of the birds 
is to feed them, and the 
gardener’s way to feed 
them is to grow those trees 
and shrubs which bear 
edible fruits of which the 
birds are fond. Here is 
a list of those recom- 
mended : 
.American Mountain Ash; 
European Mountain Ash; 
Staghorn Sumac; Smooth 
Sumac; Raspberries, Thim- 
bleberries, and Blackber- 
ries; American Elder, Sweet 
Elder, Black Elder; Virginia 
Creeper, Woodbine; Red Mul- 
berry; Russian Mulberry; Hack- 
berry, Nettle-tree or Sugar-berry; 
Winterberry (Black Alder); Bay- 
berry (Wax Myrtle); Barberry, 
Common European; Shad Bush, 
(June Berry); Black Cherry (Rum 
Cherry); Choke Cherry; 
Greenbrier, Cat brier, 
Bullbrier; Blueberries 
and Huckleberries; Tu- 
pelo, Sour Gum, Pepperidge; 
Flowering Dogwood; Red Osier 
Dogwood; Alternate-leaved Cor- 
nel, Green Osier Dogwood; Red 
Cedar, Savin. 
It will be seen at once that 
this list of shrubs suited to the 
tastes of the birds includes hardly 
a single species which is not of 
the highest value purely as an 
ornamental. So it is easy to combine almost 
any scheme of garden planting with the best 
of plans for attracting the birds. 
The squirrels have already been mentioned. 
They may prove to be the most available 
pets in some gardens. Even in the larger 
cities it is easy to keep a few squirrels at 
large. With a little feeding they become 
friendly and familiar and altogether good 
company. The gray squirrels are the pretti- 
est, the easiest tamed and the least mischie- 
vous. The little wild chattering red squirrels, 
on the other hand, rob birds’ nests and store- 
room shelves and seem to have a native turn 
for every sort of elfish wickedness. 
Quite another class of pets may be kept in 
the garden pool. Goldfish are as pretty as 
Poppies and as interesting as Witch Hazel 
in November. In all our Southern states 
they can be kept throughout the year in any 
garden aquarium which has a proper allow- 
ance of fresh water. Indeed they can be 
successfully wintered pretty well northward 
in deeper pools where the supply of fresh and 
moderately tempered water can be depended 
on. And they go a long way coward adding 
ornament and zest to the garden. 
From this point my mind goes back once 
more to a cosy little garden I once visited on 
the rolling hills of Gloucestershire. It was a 
typical English garden with a high stone wall 
about it, a great abundance of amazingly 
healthy flowers in bloom, and a household of 
charming hosts. And the little girl of the 
family brought me to see Thomas, her pet 
tortoise, who lived in that cosy walled garden 
and who very well knew his little mistress 
and would perform sundry simple tricks under 
her commands. This little girl explained 
to me that on the next afternoon there was 
to be a church fair in the village and that 
she was going to take Thomas to meet all 
the other pet tortoises of the neighborhood 
in a grand tortoise race. Suitable prizes were 
offered and she hoped Thomas would take the 
premier. I hoped so too, and like a good 
American I would gladly have bet a dollar 
on him, but that wasn’t permitted at the 
church fair. Besides I couldn’t go to the 
fair, anyway; but I’ll never forget that 
garden on the hills of Gloucestershire, nor 
my little hostess, nor Thomas. 
The gorgeous peacock strutting on the lawn ’’ 
From the creeping tortoise it is not a far cry 
to the serpent, and any one grossly inclined to 
levity might recall the story of the first woman 
in her new garden and the beguiling pet she 
kept there. But that would be too trifling a 
witticism, and besides it would lead to quite 
he wrong conclusions in this connection. , 
Yet it is true that even the bugs in the 
garden may almost become pets to the one 
who works daily with them. At least I can 
say that the humming bird moths who visit 
our four o’clocks and evening primroses while 
we linger after supper through the long sum- 
mer evenings are as welcome as any visitors 
could be. 
Doubtless some one is wondering why cats 
and dogs are not mentioned, seeing they are 
the commonest of domestic 
pets and the likeliest to find 
their way into the garden. 
Of course their company in 
the garden is quite as good 
as it is in the libraiy", and 
there is nothing to be said 
against them, unless it be 
what has already been said, 
vide licit, that the cat is just 
about certain to make way 
with the birds and may have 
to be excluded on that ac- 
count. Perhaps I ought to 
confess also that I am per- 
sonally not fond of cats, or 
dogs. They are really not 
garden pets at all. They in- 
vade the house and establish 
themselves there. If one is 
to have company thus all the 
time, indoors and out, sum- 
mer and winter, the year 
round, it might better be 
babies. Yes, better babies. 
Quite decidedly I give my 
preference to them. 
■ If one is to have company all the time, I give my preference to babies ” 
Birds are ever welcome 
visitors and the plants to feed 
them have also decided garden 
value 
« 
