-are 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
April 8, 
Some Bird Literature. 
Twenty years ago, if one wanted to 
get any accurate idea of the bird world, 
the first need was to buy a copy of Mr. 
Elliott Coues’ “Key to North American 
Birds,” a volume costing $7.50, and (as 
I compare the memory of it with books 
upon my shelves) having 600 to 800 
pages, and weighing between three and 
four pounds. This work is exhaustive 
as to plumage, structure, classification 
and all scientific details, but not more 
interesting as reading matter than is a 
dictionary. It is eminently useful for 
identifying specimens in the hand and 
indispensable to those seeking for thor¬ 
ough scientific knowledge of birds. 
Wishing to learn about the habits, 
songs and individuality of the feathered 
friends in our woods and dooryards, I 
bought instead “A Popular Handbook 
of the Ornithology of the United States 
and Canada,” a work edited by Monta¬ 
gue Chamberlain and based upon “Nut- 
tail’s Manual.” As Thomas Nuttall died 
in 1859, and as he was a born bird-lover 
with a wonderful eye for distinguishing 
traits and as remarkable an ear for bird 
notes, his writings have the charm of 
the classics. Mr. Chamberlain's work 
was to introduce the scientific accuracy 
to which the study had advanced in 
1891, the date my books bear, for it is 
a two-volume manual, costing in the 
neighborhood of $7, a price I could ill 
afford to spend, but my Nuttall has 
proved a joy forever. Let me puzzle for 
hours over some bird mystery and then 
go to him for light, and there will 1 
find the very notes or ways I have de¬ 
tected, all charmingly described. Then I 
am sure of my bird's name and of what 
my own eyes or ears thought they ob¬ 
served (bird study, like some other 
things, often leading the too credulous 
to jump into false conclusions). 
The years that followed the republica¬ 
tion of Nuttall’s works saw such charm¬ 
ing writers as Dr. Charles Abbott of 
New Jersey; Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, 
principally in New England, and Mr. 
Frank Chapman, of New York City, all 
putting forth, one after another, books 
about birds. Those delightful essayists, 
also, John Burroughs and Bradford 
Torrey, were contributing most beguil¬ 
ing pages of bird observation to the 
magazines and making us long to buy 
all their collected papers when put forth 
between book covers. We soon learned 
to treasure up all of Dr. C. Hart Mer- 
ri'am’s wisdom that came in our way, 
and to think the books written by Miss 
Florence Merriam all too few, and 
among the most delightful we knew. 
Some of these writers set their skill to 
the task of making hand-books for 
student’s use. Each will have its special 
merits for those wdio use it. For myself 
nothing in the way of a one-book guide 
has ever seemed more practical than 
Frank Chapman’s “Bird-life.” 
But there are various handbooks less 
expensive to buy and dealing with more 
restricted areas, but well worth owning. 
The Agricultural Experiment Station of 
North Carolina gives in Bulletin No. 
144 a list with notes covering the ornith¬ 
ology of that State, and equally useful in 
the surrounding country. Colorado puts 
forth, in Bulletin No. 37, an equally in¬ 
teresting resume concerning its bird- 
wealth, with list of publications, and so 
forth. No doubt other experiment sta¬ 
tions can furnish similar handbooks, and 
those who have even a budding interest 
in birds should inquire what their State’s 
agricultural station has to meet their 
needs. All such should also send at 
once to Washington, D. C., for Bulletins 
No. 3, No. 54, and No. 9, addressing the 
Biological Survey, U. S. Department of 
Agriculture. With - merely the Bulletin 
No. 54 in hand any farmer, or his wife, 
or children, may get a bowing acquaint¬ 
ance with perhaps 20 of those birds most 
common and most noticeable about the 
farm, for the pictures, though uncol¬ 
ored, have painstaking accuracy. The 
text has to do with food habits, but once 
you know a bird by sight you may, if so 
fortunate to dwell -where it is seen fre¬ 
quently, study out songs, dates of arrival 
and choice of nesting sites for yourself. 
It would be well, for teachers especially, 
to correspond with the nearest Audu¬ 
bon Society, as pamphlets and other pub¬ 
lications might be learned about. The 
Audubon Bird Charts (two series) each 
show 26 of our best-loved birds in form, 
coloring and pose so natural as to make 
their recognition in the flesh almost un¬ 
avoidable. Every school room where 
these are not owned should purchase 
them from the Massachusetts Audubon 
Society, 234 Berkeley Street. Boston, 
Mass. And “every teacher finding these 
charts hanging to fade and grow monot¬ 
onously tiresome all Winter should lay 
them away until April, when for three 
months they will be sources of interest 
and help. 
One of the best books ever issued in 
the interest of bird study in a prescribed 
locality is Mrs. L. W. Maynard’s “Birds 
of Washington and Vicinity.” The de¬ 
scriptions are noticeably simple and ac¬ 
curate, and the text shows abundant 
reading, as well as the best of first-hand 
knowledge. Frank Chapman’s ingenious 
“F'ield Key to Our Common Land 
Birds” is included. Though a dollar 
book, it is well worth its cost to a bird- 
lover of Maryland or Virginia, and will 
answer well as a manual for the student. 
Some years ago the J. E. Williams Co., 
of Amherst, Mass., published an inex¬ 
pensive handbook in paper covers, giv¬ 
ing descriptions and brief mention of 
arrival, eggs, nests, songs and food of 
“The Birds of Amherst,” and nearly the 
whole of Hampshire Co., Mass. There 
are reasons why the smaller “Guide,” 
dealing only with the species one is 
likeliest to see is the least confusing of 
all helpers in identifying a feathered 
stranger. We are ambitious to own the 
key in which every possible specimen is 
listed, and then we fall into the way of 
going first to our handy little local sum¬ 
mary where the thing we want to know 
is not buried deep amid hundreds we 
don’t want to know. a. m. t. 
My Garden Mistakes. 
The seed catalogues are coming in, 
and I am forgetting the snow that blan¬ 
kets the garden spots and seeing instead 
such thrifty rows of peas and beets, 
corn and tomatoes as never grew ex¬ 
cept at this season of the year and seen 
only in the mind’s eye. 
"Now, what were those mistakes?” I 
asked myself. “What were the garden 
iollies I meant never to be guilty of 
again? I remember thinking them over 
last Fall, and 1 wish I had written them 
down. Oh, now I recollect!” 
One folly was the petting of a tomato 
plant which came up beside something 
in the window garden. I potted it off 
after a while, and if became a vigorous 
young thing, looking as if it boasted it¬ 
self as ’way ahead of the small seedlings 
a friend gave me. She had sowed a 
panful of early and late sorts, and baby 
seedlings, set in flats, and then potted 
off, gave me good plants for my garden 
rows when danger of frost was over. 
But from my one house-grown seedling 
1 expected great things, because it had 
such an early start and because I gave 
ii a place in the flower bed south of the 
house and a rustic support to climb upon. 
It was too late to set a Clematis there 
when the rose had been cleared away. 
"But I will surprise the family with 
early tomatoes,” said I, and was proud 
of my great, thrifty plant. Busy days 
came on, but I tied my tomato to its 
frame and watched it grow. But some¬ 
how my garden plants gave me ripe to¬ 
matoes, while its few clusters of fruit 
were still gaining shape and color. The 
soil of the flower bed was too rich and 
more vine than fruit was the result, there 
was no gain in earliness and finally the 
variety proved undersized, though fair 
and smooth. So no more pet seedling 
tomatoes. 
Another thing I came to regret was 
tl'.at I had planted early string beans 
next to late sweet corn. The beans being 
gene, I sowed late beets in the row, and 
my tall sweet corn shaded the land 
badly. In a large garden these things 
would not matter, but I like to have 
long rows, and so can have only one 
or two of each sort of vegetable. The 
•matter of keeping the ground occupied 
up to the end of the season is one I 
never quite succeeded in. Cabbage and 
turnips I can get from field-grown lots. 
The late beets did only fairly well but 
might have grown faster if farther away 
from the corn. Beets, we ’find, can 
scarcely be too small for canning, and 
the little just-grown ones are much 
more sweet and tender than the big, 
coarser-fibered ones that have been 
growing since Spring. Kale makes a 
very good space filler. Lettuce can be 
used, but we seem to have lost relish for 
it after tomatoes and other salad mate¬ 
rial is plenty. 
One mistake I certainly shall not re¬ 
peat was the planting of one long row of 
sweet corn at a time. I did not know, 
until I read it somewhere, that the cross 
fertilization that takes place where sev¬ 
eral rows of corn stand side by side is 
quite essential if one would grow well- 
filled ears. 
And did I make the soil too rich for 
my Dahlias where they gave me twisted 
buds that developed upon only one side? 
[“Blasting” of Dahlia buds often results 
from an enfeebled root system combined 
with too rapid soft growth of top. It is 
usually the result of liberal watering 
without stirring the surface of the soil. 
Many growers think it better to give fre¬ 
quent surface cultivation rather than ar¬ 
tificial watering. The dust mulch is 
helpful to the Dahlia, which will endure 
many deficiencies of soil so long as it is 
not baked hard.—Eds.] There was a 
time, when the plants were about a foot 
high, when they seemed to feel life a 
failure, but after a while all recovered 
and grew vigorously. I fancied that the 
Dahlias demanded very rich soil, but 
perhaps I did not have the well-rotted 
and deeply plowed-in compost they like. 
1 rather like having my Dahlias in the 
vegetable garden. My plan was to pick 
every bloom and to keep a great bowlful 
on the sitting-room table. If I had been 
selling vegetables I should have sent the 
Dahlias to market along with other 
things. But I would have been careful 
to bunch the pink and crimson sorts to¬ 
gether and the scarlet and white ones by 
themselves. Just yellow and white 
blossoms make lovely bouquets, or white 
Dahlias with some fine green foliage. 
But to mingle crimson and scarlet is a 
hideous color discord. 
And now as I study my seed cata¬ 
logues I am wondering how many of my 
1911 plans will need to be repented of 
next Fall. Shall I make a failure in 
trying to.grow a few dwarf Cupid sweet 
peas beside my radishes and lettuce? I 
should so love picking a fragrant hand¬ 
ful each morning for the breakfast table. 
And is it safe to set tomatoes a third 
season where I have such a convenient 
place for resting the tops of old bean¬ 
poles against some tall poultry-netting 
fence? It has been such a fine place for 
tying them up, and easy to add a circle 
of two-foot poultry netting and so pro¬ 
tect them from the hens. But the to¬ 
matoes there last season seemed a trifle 
less vigorous than those on fresh soil. 
I know that it is always advisable to 
change the Lima beans from the place 
they grew the year before, but how about 
tomatoes? I find mustard recommended 
•for boiling like spinach, and wonder if 
the sort one can plant in “Summer or 
Early Fall” would not be a good thing 
to follow peas and lettuce. Shall I make 
a mistake in planting mustard for 
greens? [Mustard and cress, planted 
together, is always the very first Spring 
salad with many old-fashioned English 
gardeners. It is also sown in shallow 
boxes and and grown in the window.— 
Eds.] 
Last Summer as I would come up 
from my garden in the dewy morning 
with a basket filled with handsome vege¬ 
tables of various sorts, and topped by a 
handful of Dahlia blossoms, I would 
own to myself that whatever mistakes 
I made there was none in having a gar¬ 
den in which to experiment and grow 
wise. PRUDENCE PRIMROSE. 
A Batch of Pancakes. 
Buckwheat Cakes.—Two cups butter¬ 
milk, one cup buckwheat flour, one cup 
flour, two teaspoonsful sugar, one tea¬ 
spoonful salt, one level teaspoon of sal- 
eratus. These are more wholesome than 
cakes made of all buckwheat. I make 
graham cakes the same way, using one 
cup of graham flour in place of the 
buckwheat. 
Cornmeal Cakes.—Two cups butter¬ 
milk, one-half cup cornmeal, cups 
of flour, two teaspoonsfuls sugar, two 
eggs, one tablespoon fill melted butter, 
one teaspoon salt, one level teaspoon 
saleratus. 
Flannel cakes I make of all white flour, 
using sweet milk and baking powder, 
eggs, sugar, salt and butter. 
MRS. K. B. 
Where are the great, whom thou wouldst 
wish to praise thee? 
Where are the pure, whom thou wouldst 
choose to love thee? 
Where are the brave to stand supreme 
above thee? 
Whose high commands would cheer, whose 
chidings raise thee? 
Seek, seeker, in thyself, submit to find 
In the stones bread, and life in the blank 
mind. 
—Arthur Hugh Clough. 
This Work Shoe 
Wears Like 
the Hoofs of 
a Horse 
The Haskin- 
Granger Shoe 
is strictly a 
work shoe for 
farmers. 
The uppers 
are made of the stoutest leathers 
known to shoemakers, genuine 
French Kip. oil-tanned moose, calf, 
etc. The outsoles are of specially 
selected, hemlock-tanned steer’s 
hide, pegged to equally solid leather 
insoles. We purposely avoid sewing 
on our soles. The best linen thread in 
the world will not withstand the wet 
rotting of stable refuse and manure. 
We use brass standard screws and 
old-fashioned maple pegs that shrink 
and swell with the leather and 
always keep a water-tight bottom. 
The 
Haskin-Granger 
Shoe 
is not to be confused with the ordi¬ 
nary mail order shoe. The Haskin- 
Granger shoe is made in our own 
factory under expert supervision. 
We are making the most sensible 
and serviceable farm shoe in the 
world. We are selling direct to the 
farmer and eliminating all middle 
profits. We stand back of every shoe 
we make and guarantee perfect sat¬ 
isfaction or money refunded. 
Write Dept. A for illustrations of 
leading styles with full descriptions 
and prices. 
For our responsibility refer to the 
Citizen’s Trust Co., 
Utica, N. Y., or any 
bank in Utica. 
The Haskin Shoe 
Mfg. Company 
Sfiftville 
Mc.w York 
Write for 
FREE 
Style Book 
Save$8 
Suit or 
Overcoat 
Direct 
from Mill 
$10 to 
$18 
(Maile-to-Order ) 
Worth 
$18 to $30 
You can wear clothes as stylish as can be 
bought on Fifth Avenue. New York, and pay 
for them at living prices, because we save yo.u 
the middleman’s profit. Our suits and coats 
are of fine material, and are handsomely 
tailored. 
We pay express charges East of Mississippi 
and make allowances West of it. 
Our book offers a wide variety of patterns 
from which to choose. A post-card request 
brings it to you. 
GLEN ROCK WOOLEN CO. 
2ns Main Street Somerville, N. J. 
AMERICAN 
SEPARATOR 
SENT ON TRIAL, FULLY 
GUARANTEED. A new, well 
made, easy running separator for 
$15.95. Skims hot or cold milk: 
heavy or light cream. Different 
from this picture which illus¬ 
trates our large capacity ma¬ 
chines. The bowl is a sanitary 
marvel, easily cleaned. Whether 
dairy is large or small, obtain our 
handsome free catalog. Address 
AMERICAN SEPARATOR CO. BA . 
95 
AND UP- 
WARD 
j [ Be An »Independent Buyer Spend One Cent For 
This Big FREE Book 
A Ked&nv&zoo 
Direct to You” 
TRADE MARK REGISTERED 
—“And Gas 
Stoves, Too” 
Oven Thermom¬ 
eter Makes 
Baking Easy 
Our Big Free Stove and Range Book gives you our 
factory wholesale prices and explains all—saving you 
£5 to £40 on any famous Kalamazoo stove or range, 
including gas stoves. Sold only direct to homes. 
Over 140,000 satisfied cus¬ 
tomers in 21,000 towns. Over 400 styles and sizes to select from. 
£100,000 bank bond guarantee. We prepay all freight and give you 
—30 Days’ Free Trial 
—360 Days’ Approval Test 
-CASH OR CREDIT 
Write a postal for our book today—any responsible person can 
have same credit as your home stores would give you—and you save 
$5 to $40 cash. No better stoves or ranges than the Kalamazoo could 
be made—at any price. Prove it, before we keep your money. Be 
an independent buyer Send name for Free Catalogue No. 114, 
Kalamazoo Stove Company, Mfrs., Kalamazoo, Michigan 
