Part 8

That alfalfa experiment is only admitted by special grace under the head of floriculture, although the lucerne has no lack of handsome blossoms. A little seed was sprinkled on the ground after the spring rains and forgotten. When the winter rains came again, that alfalfa reached out for both the zenith and nadir. Three times a year it is cut to keep it from falling down. The details are suppressed here, with only an intimation that they are sufficient for several agricultural addresses. If that man is a benefactor who has made two blades of grass grow in the place of one, what is he who has made alfalfa shoot up at the rate of seven tons to the acre, in the place of miserable sorrel-top? But there was a discount upon that experiment. The alfalfa drew to it all the gophers in the neighborhood. They mined and countermined, until the whole area had been honeycombed. They multiplied by scores and hundreds. These rodents drew together all the vagrant cats in the neighborhood, which made this corner of the garden a common hunting ground. Here upon this small area was a crop of alfalfa, a crop of gophers--which no man has numbered to this day--and a crop of cats, as fiercely predatory and as unrelenting in a skirmish as were ever put in battle array. But somehow this experiment has not been satisfactory. It has branched out in too many ways. Two empty arnica bottles suggest the muscular strains which came from moderating those cats with an occasional volley of rocks. And at this writing, half a dozen felines are on the fence looking solemnly down at the sapping and mining which is going on below.

There are no birds in this region which domesticate so readily as the linnets, and which improve more on an intimate acquaintance. They are not so obstreperous as the wren, nor so shy as the lark and the robin. The latter is a migratory bird, coming down to this latitude only in the Winter, and going north for a nesting in the Spring. A single robin has lived in the garden all Winter, becoming nearly as tame as a chicken, following the man with the spading-fork, and snapping up the worms in a sharp competition with his cousin, the brown thrush. The former, in place of any song, has a lonesome and fugitive call, as though waiting for his mate. He is probably a bachelor, who has not yet set up an establishment of his own. A little girl, having gravely considered the case, suggests that he ought to send a letter inviting a mate to come. O, my little friend! oral communication is much more interesting; at least, it was so in our time. Neither was it considered cowardice if the heart came up into the throat.

The linnets are model birds in their domestic life. A pair built a nest last year under the porch, and, having brought up one family of four and dismissed them, the pair furbished up the nest again and brought up a family of four more the same season. They have held secret conferences over the nest recently, and it evidently falls in with their views of domestic economy to use it again. It is possible that they appreciated a little device which we had to adopt for their safety. As the nest was at the extremity of a festoon of vines, there was nothing to hinder the house-cat from going up and feasting on callow birds. An odd lot of trout hooks, fastened to the lower vines, operated as a powerful non-conductor.

Some years ago, a pair of linnets having made their nest in the porch of another house, everything went well until the young had just appeared; then the mother disappeared one night, and the displaced vines in the morning told the whole story. Four orphan birds appealed to the sympathies of the young folk. The nest was taken into the house, the birds carefully covered with cotton, and every effort was made to save them. They would eat nothing, and, as a last resort, the nest was replaced in the vines. The father came back soon, talked with his children, brooded them, fed them day after day, brought them up to maturity, and turned out as prosperous a family of young linnets as there was in that neighborhood. Mr. Linnet can have the most positive certificate of rare domestic virtues. There is the slight drawback that he paints, does all the singing, and is rather vain; while Mrs. Linnet is a plain, unassuming bird, always clad in gray, and is not up in music. All through the realm of ornithology the male bird has the brightest colors and does the singing. But analogy is all at fault when you come to men and women. Who puts on all the bright colors here, paints, and carols upon the topmost bough of the domestic tree? By what law has this order been reversed? And yet the sum of your political economy is, that a woman who can dress more, use pigments more cunningly, and talk faster, and sing better than a man, shall not vote! Is that the way to set up your ideal republic?

One may learn secrets of ornithology in the garden which the books will not yield up. That boy coming up the rear garden walk, who has swung himself into a pear tree to look into the nest of a finch, has done the same thing consecutively on a dozen mornings. He will be able to tell just how many days are required for incubation, and how many days intervene before the birds are full-fledged. I should have had more hope for him as a future ornithologist, had not the young heathen asked for the eggs to put upon his string. There is not such a great difference, after all, between an Apache with a string of scalps at his belt, and a school boy with his string of birds' eggs. If it were not for that infernal cruelty which has been inbred by false teaching, or no teaching, our relations with all the lower forms of life would be intimate and confidential, instead of suspicious and oftentimes revolting. One can match the worst specimens of cannibalism by pointing out strings of larks hung up by their bills any day in the market. I know of no cannibal who ever became ferocious enough to eat singing birds, or to find pleasure in killing them.

There are two or three notes in the song of the lark which are not surpassed in sweetness by any of the oriole or finch family. If one will take a dash into the country some bright morning, on horseback, and note how this joyous bird goes before him, alighting on the fence and calling down a benediction from the heavens, either he will come back filled with gladness, or his liver trouble has got the best of him. All the song birds of much note in this State may be assigned to the three families of thrushes, orioles and finches. In the first of these we have the robin; in the second, the lark; and in the third, the linnet. The sub-families will reach nearly a hundred, and there is not one of them which will not pay in songs and in the destruction of insects for all the mischief he does. Now, a bird that pays his bills in advance, has a right to protection. Observe, too, how soon they recognize any attempt to establish friendly relations with them. Last year a finch had her feet entangled by a string with which she had lined her nest. A little help rendered to set her free, made her an intimate friend, and a shallow pan of water in the grass drew daily dividends of fresh songs. A box with a few holes in it, set on a post, will not remain empty a year; either the blue-birds or the martins will take possession of it.

A garden ought to be planned as much for the birds as for lawns and flowers. The hedges will afford hiding-places for timid birds, and shade on hot days. The tall trees will furnish perches when they want to sing; and a well-fed bird, that has no family trouble on hand, wants to sing nearly all his leisure time. As for the cherries and small fruits, the birds are only gentle communists. If we cannot tolerate a division made with all the inspiration of song, and which leaves us at least one side of the cherry, how are we to tolerate that division predicted by some of the labor prophets, if made with the music of paving-stones and much fragile crockery?

One cannot go far into the woods in any direction without observing what a protest all the birds utter at first. There are harsh screams, sharp notes of warning, and general scolding. Now, every bird has a great deal of curiosity to take a look at strangers. For a time they flit about in the tall tree-tops, and afterward begin to hop down to lower limbs, and, gradually descending, come to the ground, or on to low bushes. By remaining quiet an hour or two, a dozen or more will circle around within a few feet, turning their heads on one side occasionally, and quizzing in a saucy, merry way. In a little while one may be on intimate terms with the very birds which protested so loudly at his coming. They will tell him a great many secrets. The leaves of his book on ornithology may be a quarter of a mile square, but what can not be read on one day may be read on some other. Even an owl burrowing with a ground-squirrel, and both agreeing very well as tenants in common with a rattlesnake, may suggest questions of affinity and community which it might be inconvenient to answer at once. If you prefer to have some readings in a book of nature, you can turn down a leaf and go back the next day with the certainty that no one has lugged off the volume. And if your finger-mark is a tree 250 feet high, there will be no great difficulty in finding the place.

But a garden of a single acre can only be at most, a diamond edition of nature. A great deal must be left out. The owl, as a singing-bird, is not wanted; and, although tadpoles may be raised in the little fish-pond, it is not expected that the hippopotamus will come there to wallow. The birds must of necessity be few and select. If the lark sometimes sings at sunrise on the lower fence, and the thrush and the linnet bid you good morning out of the nearest tree-tops, you will not fail to respond, unless on that particular morning when you especially need an extract of dandelion; and that will generally happen when the golden blossoms can be found along the way-side. It might be well, also, to leave a little nook for sage and worm-wood. They are not only handsome plants in their way, but the average wisdom of any grandmother will unfold their remedial properties.

There are seven well-defined species of humming-birds to be found in this State, and two or three more not described, except in the unpublished notes of Grayson. None of these birds are singers; the best they can do is to make a noise like the turning of a small ratchet-wheel. But somehow, this ungenial, obstreperous little bird, darting in a saucy way close to one's ears, and then, balancing over a flower, never ceases to excite interest. He might have dropped out of Paradise, if it were not for his temper, which lacks any heavenly quality, and for his song, which would soon raise a mutiny above or below. He is a half unreal bird; and we do not know what soul in a transition state may be lodged in his little body. There are a great many souls small enough to occupy it. Now, the house-cat had been taught, after a long time, to respect birds, and that to look longingly at a humming-bird was something akin to sacrilege. But original sin, or instinct, was always ready to break out at the sight of a humming-bird. One evening she trotted down the garden walk with head up and a diminutive bird in her mouth. It took a lively turn of three times or more around that acre lot to overhaul that cat; nor was it done until the pursuer was thoroughly red in the face and blown, having just strength enough left to gripe her by the throat and make her let go. It was the poorest job of bird-philanthropy ever done in that garden. There was nothing to reward a merciful man but a humming miller, of just the size and finish, from bill to wings, of a humming-bird, but only an ugly bug as to his posterior half--a creature with his head and wings over in the realms of ornithology, and the rest of his ugly body still in the field of entomology. The quality of mercy is strained which undertakes to protect any such half-formed work of creation. When, therefore, a few evenings afterward, a _shrike_, or butcher-bird, came into the garden, devoured half a dozen of these bogus humming-birds, and hung up as many more on the thorns of a honey-locust, that circumstance suggested no doubt about the eternal fitness of things.

The quail is easily domesticated in any garden, and, if protected, will become as tame as the chickens. I have more than once seen them run where a hen was scratching, and pick up whatever could be found. Some years ago, while mowing the grass around the edges of another garden, a nest was discovered containing a dozen hen's eggs and _seventeen_ quail's eggs. The village _savants_ never did fairly settle the questions raised about that nest. Did the hen have the prior right, first choosing the place and making the nest? or did the quail pre-empt, and was the hen an unlawful squatter? Did they lay on alternate days, or concurrently as to time? And how did the eggs get that arrangement by which all the crevices were filled with the smaller ones? And which did the incubating? The quail could not cover the nest. But nearly all the eggs of both sorts were ultimately hatched. It had been settled before that time, by our system of patriarchial jurisprudence, that the issue followed the condition of the mother. The chicks respected that principle, since so rudely questioned, and each followed its mother, so that substantial justice was done, and the heavens did not fall.

No garden is well stocked without a pair or two of toads. They will learn to distinguish your foot-steps from those of a stranger, as they come out at twilight. The toad is a philosopher, and is the most self-contained of all living things. He meditates all day in the shade, and takes his dinner promptly at twilight. That dinner may require a thousand insects. The dart of his tongue is never made amiss. If you cannot cultivate him for his beauty--and there may be a doubt on that score--you can tolerate him for his honest work. There is some cant about the ugliness of the toad that you would not respect when you have taught a pair to come out of their hiding places at your call, have given them pet names, and have seen them slay the remorseless mosquito. If you step on one after nightfall, it will be useless to objurgate. You cannot provoke him to talk back.

Consider what an advantage the toad has in another respect. He not only hibernates a part of the year, and thus saves his board-bills, but he has been known to suspend active life for a quarter of a century or more; as when, getting into a hollow tree, the orifice has been filled up, or he has been wedged in the cleft of a rock. But when restored, he resumes life with no inconvenience to his digestion. What might be gained if one only had the vitality of this batrachian! You have been overtaken by a stupidly dull era, or are disgusted with life. What an advantage to call on some friend to pack you away in ice, and to thaw you out only when the next quarter-century bell rings! Since we cannot go safely over this bridge with the batrachian, it is not well to put such a discount on his ugliness, nor is it well to be too exclamatory, if you tread on him in the twilight.

The garden is the place to test a great many pretty theories. And what if some of them fail? Is not the sum of our knowledge derived from failures, greater than all we have ever gained by successes? A feminine oracle, not content with her honeysuckle theory, had said: "You must not pull up a plant nor a vine that springs up spontaneously. Let it grow. There is luck in it." When, therefore, a melon-vine made its appearance quite in the wrong place, it was spared through the wisdom of that oracle. It went sprawling over the ground, choking more delicate plants, and rioting day by day in the warm sun and the rich loam underneath. Nearly all its blossoms fell off without fruitage. One melon took up all the life of the vine, and grew wonderfully. There had been tape-line measurements without number. When it gave out a satisfactory sound by snapping it with thumb and finger, and the nearest tendril had dried up, it was held to be fully ripe. It was _very_ ripe. A gopher had mined under that melon, and, not content with eating out the entire pulp, had, in the very wantonness of his deviltry, tamped the shell full of dirt! Where was the luck in this spontaneous growth? Nor did the matter end here. Sometime thereafter the following note, written in a feminine hand, was found pinned to that shell:

"GARDEN ON THE HILL, August 20, 187--.

"MR. B----: _Dear Sir_--Since you have had the benefit of my discovery of the new method of planting honeysuckles inserted in potatoes, and you have also tested my theory of the luck there is in melon-vines of spontaneous growth, it has occurred to me that you would fully appreciate my skill and attainments. Now, I expect to be a candidate for the Chair of Horticulture and Floriculture in the University. I must have strong recommendations. Will you be kind enough to furnish me a certificate in which full justice is done to my attainments? My success may hinge on that certificate. Make it as strong as you can with a good conscience.

AGRAPINA.

P. S.--I forgot to tell you that if you had pinched out the eyes of the tubers in that first experiment, while you would have had less potatoes, you might not have had any more honeysuckles."

A.

That certificate was fully prepared. If we know anything about our mother tongue, the qualifications of the applicant were fully set out. Singularly enough, she has never applied in person for the document.

The almond tree is worthy of a place in every garden, even if it never fruits. The pale blush of its blossoms is the herald of Spring. In the warm days of February it puts on a pink dress, and is glorified. The bees come out, lured evidently by the scent of its flowers; but they flit about in a fugitive way, as if not satisfied with what they had found. There are small resources of honey in the almond blossoms; so much might be learned from the spiteful way in which the humming-birds darted off after sounding a little with their long bills. Something like one almond came to maturity for every thousand buds which unfolded in the early Spring. Two or three hundred "paper shells" clung to the tree hard by the library door, in the late Autumn. Whatever had been the fortune of other almond growers, here was a crop by an amateur. It was of no consequence that there had been a great discrepancy between flowers and fruit. Precious things are never abundant. No, by no manner of means, were these almonds to grace any Thanksgiving table. Let thanks be given for the brown shells clinging to the tree, and for whatever of internal good this outwardness might suggest. And not least, for the humming-bird's nest on the end of a pendent limb, so like a warty excrescence of the tree as not to be observed by careless eyes--and for that mutual confidence when curly-headed children were lifted up, and birds and children communed face to face, chirruped, and were glad.

"What became of the almonds?" There was a case of misplaced confidence. It was well enough that the finch, the linnet, the chat and the sparrow, had plucked the cherries, sampled the plums, and had taken kindly to the mellow side of the pears. December had come. Only here and there a fugitive gross-beak flitted about--a bird with a wonderful capacity for mellow song, but silent, as if never a note had gone out of his capacious throat and chubby bill. Perhaps they could be induced to sing in midwinter if confidence could be established. Half a dozen almonds were laid on the walk, which a pair of gross-beaks "shucked" with wonderful facility. That stout, short beak is fitted for a nut eater. Half an hour afterward there were twenty gross-beaks on that almond tree; and forty minutes later, they had stored every almond in their crops, cutting away the shells as deftly as one could do with a sharp knife. So tame and bold were they that one could have nearly reached them with his hand. Not a note was given in return, nothing but a twitter, as much as to say, "This is a royal dinner; there were just enough nuts to go round." And then they went off silently into the blue sky.

The first man, being historically and traditionally perfect, had a garden as his noblest allotment. The farther the race drifts away from the cultivation of the soil, the nearer it gets to barbarism. The Apache is not a good horticulturist, and therefore there is no gentleness in his blood. Teach him to love and cultivate a garden, and he is no longer a savage. The best thought and the best inspiration may come to one when all the gentler ministries of his garden wait upon him--when the soul of things is concurrent with his own, and bee and almond blossom, the rose, and the smallest song-sparrow in the tree-top, are revelators and instructors.

THE HOMESTEAD BY THE SEA.

THE HOMESTEAD BY THE SEA.

The sighing and respiration of the great sea to-day was wonderfully soothing, until there was a series of dull explosions, like the percussion of far-off gunnery. One may hear these sounds on a still midsummer day, or at midnight, when the sea is pulsing and breaking along the shore line. It required two hours to find out the secret. Along these chalk cliffs there are great caverns, wind and wave worn. Standing near the mouth of one of them, a "boomer" came surging along, and placed its watery seal over the mouth, driving and pressing the atmosphere before it. When the seal was broken there was an explosion like a gun seaward. The turn of the tide is frequently marked by a series of these boomers, and then there is a suggestion of a park of artillery under the cliffs, and the long roll is beaten along the shore. All discoveries are simple enough when once the secret has been found out. How many men walk along the edge of a discovery all their lives, and never quite enter into the promised land! Some blundering successor stumbles into the fruition of the great secret. There are men within bow-shot of prizes as magnificent as ever crowned human research; but they will go no farther. Columbus rested at the Antilles; the continent was just beyond. If you have got as far as the islands, it may be well, before you give up the search, to look at the sea-weeds and drift-wood, whether they do not come from the mainland. Having gathered and cooked the mussels, you might as well stay and eat them as to have another eat them and throw the shells after you. Charles Lamb discourseth about the mussel wisely: "Traveling is not good for us; we travel so seldom. How much more dignified leisure hath a mussel, glued to his impassable rocky limit, two inches square! He hears the tide roll over him backward and forward twice a day (as the Salisbury coach goes and returns in eight and forty hours), but knows better than to take an outside place on the top of it. He is the owl of the sea, Minerva's fish, the fish of wisdom." And yet the mussel can travel, and if detached will seek out a new location, and by means of its silken beard, or byssus threads, which it can weave in a few minutes, anchor itself anew to the rock. It has two enemies: The whelk, a sort of univalve mussel wolf, which bores a hole through the shell about the size of a pin, and sucks the life out; then there is a species of sea-gull which, when all other resources fail, plucks off the mussels, and, rising high enough, dashes them on the rocks; from which circumstance Æsop may, or may not, have invented his story of an eagle dashing a tortoise on the shining crown of a bald-headed man.