WALKS AND TALKS AT BREEZE HILL—VIII 
j. Horace McFarland 
Wherein Is Reflective, Critical, Philosophical, and Frieifdly Comment About Plants 
and Their Behavior, Inspired by Personal Experiences in a Garden Made for Pleasure 
Editors’ Note: It is some time since we’ve had the pleasure of listening to Mr. McFarland’s illuminating chat about garden matters, and the many readers 
who want to follow this whimsical and friendly host further as he wanders about Breeze Hill may turn back to earlier issues in which his first seven articles 
appeared. 
MLL my life I have regarded the robin redbreast—whose 
G /\ a ) breast is brown, not red — as the very embodiment of 
j/fl, bird virtue. Cheerful is his early song; fond of human 
ikdldi society, upstanding and fearless in his bird relations, 
he and his frequent families have been objects of admiration 
as well as protection. 
Sir Robin is presumed to be a very champion of productive 
agriculture, a guardian of the gardens, in his appetite for de¬ 
structive insects. For all I know he is all of this: but also he’s 
not solely carnivorous in his diet, as I have been learning dis¬ 
astrously for several years, nor is he regardful of food supplies 
that we humans think apply to us only. We have long been 
accustomed to look with resignation at the entire absorption 
by the robin family of all the sweet cherries on the one old tree 
bearing them at Breeze Hill. With a surplus in sight of sour 
cherries, we smile a little at the removal in ordinary seasons of 
half the crop. 
We have not been at all complacent or consenting as these 
same luxuriously fed birds do their quite efficient best to ab¬ 
sorb every strawberry—or the ripened sunny cheek of every 
strawberry—as it matures. To give up to them and the brown 
thrushes every blackberry on our plants; to get only a tantalizing 
few of the red raspberries that we must take before they are 
ripe—these predations we have perforce endured, because we 
could not help it. 
Grapes versus Robins 
B UT now the robins have concluded that grapes are best for 
them and bad for us, and that our method of bagging the 
better bunches is only to extend their eating opportunity. All 
the unbagged bunches—and the summer of 1921 ripened on my 
fifty-seven vines more than five hundred such, of the sixteen 
varieties 1 have come to prefer in a half-century of grape rela¬ 
tions—they took care of early, as they ripened. The method 
is to peck at the grape to get a taste of its sweet juice, going on at 
once to another, the bees and the ants being at hand to do the 
finishing. Occasionally I have been able to forestall the birds 
and possess myself of an unbagged bunch, but not often. 
Two years ago the robins discovered that by attention in the 
early morning, when the stout “Kraft” bags are usually wet 
with dew, they could get into the choicer clusters I thought 1 
had protected. Not long ago we had a wet year, and possibly 
there were other items on the Breeze Hill bill of fare they pre¬ 
ferred, for the bags were mostly unharmed. But in the dry 
season of 1921 they had at least three hundred bagged bunches, 
in addition to the half-thousand unprotected clusters previously 
mentioned. These birds have a critical taste, too. Certain less 
tlavorful grapes they pass by, but my prized Brighton bunches, 
my exceptionally fine Niagaras, they seek, find, and absorb. 
Pears, too, have been hollowed out and eaten right on the 
tree by these “friends of mankind.” When I happen to disturb 
a family at their continuous dessert course, they swear at me 
scandalously in their very definite language, and there’s no song 
to it at all. 
1 have sprayed heavily and disgustingly with bordeaux, think¬ 
ing perhaps to repel the robins from the grapes. They mind 
the copper taste not at all, and 1 suppose lime-sulphur would 
merely seem an appetizer to them. 
What am I to do about it? 1 like grapes and strawberries 
and cherries and raspberries and blackberries, but unless some 
remedy or defense appears, I will have to yield them wholly to 
the birds. Many proper berry-bearing plants and trees are at 
Breeze Hill, and a great Mulberry has seemed heretofore the 
peculiar property of the birds. They want all the fruits, appar¬ 
ently; how am 1 to secure any? Can any one tell me what to do? 
Satisfying the Thirsty Vine 
W RITING of the case of the Robins vs. the Grapes, now 
submitted to the Garden Court, I am moved to tell of cer¬ 
tain deductions as to grape maturity resulting from Breeze Hill 
experience. Each good grape year 1 find the vines are permitted 
to carry more bunches than some of them can mature, despite 
my attempts to thin them. Somewhere I read of the success 
of Grapes in a location with abundant moisture plus good 
drainage, and that prepared me to experiment. 
The summer of 1920 was one of abundant and well-distributed 
rainfall, and a great grape crop matured on the Breeze Hill 
vines.. (These, by the way, include a dozen old Concord vines 
known to have been planted in 1858, and fruiting now quite 
comfortably with the vines planted by me in 1910 and later.) 
This gave rather indefinite proof of the value of water for 
Grapes. 
The summer of 1921 was, as I have above noted, a record- 
breaker for heat and drouth. We came to September 1st with 
seven inches shy of the annual rainfall for the year—a deficiency 
of thirty per cent. The excess heat for the year exceeded a 
thousand degrees, the accumulation of daily excess averages 
above the recorded Weather Bureau averages for this locality. 
We had to water, water, water, and yet see plants and crops 
parch and droop. 
The two long grape rows had been kept constantly cultivated, 
and the vines also were fed with a mixture of bonemeal and 
sheep manure. Four times they were watered most thoroughly 
by the lawn-mist sprinkler, which gave the effect of a steady rain 
rather than a mere shower. (This Skinner lawn-mist affair is 
twelve feet long, has a wheel at one end and a hose connection 
at the other, and its non-clogging nozzles, set at three angles, 
produce what 1 call “water dust” over an area of about 7 x 14 
feet at one placing.) The sprinkler was drawn through the 
centre of the rows and left a full half-hour or more at each plac¬ 
ing. The result has proved—to me, at least—that Grapes 
need much water, for there was full maturity of a heavy crop 
that abnormally hot and dry year. 
Hereafter my Grape-vines will never thirst! 
