Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-12-31

of our finest songbirds winter in this
locality. and these birds. unless food
supplies are furnished during the VIM
ter. die in large numbers. sheaf of
unthreshed wheat or oats firmly at
tached to a pole ten feet high and
placed where the birds will find 1t will
soon draw big crowd Of hungry din
ers. as will a half-pound lump of suet
similarly exposed. The fact that many
Of the guests at such free dinners will
be English sparrows should not be
;ause for failing to furnish other birds
with food: mocking birds. juncoes, car
ifnals, hedge sparrows and other native
birds will probably outnumber the OBJ
jectionable immigrants.
1t would be well to give a look from
time to time to the bulb beds or rows,
which were covered with straw early
in the winter. to be sure the mulch has
not blown away. Repeated freezing and
thawing of a strawberry bed will
almost certainly throw the plants out
of the ground unless the bed has been
carefully mulched: while a few warm
having days may cause tulips and
other bulbs to send up shoots-espe-
ctally II the bulbs were not planted
deeply enough-that u return of hard
freezing weather will probably destroy
IL the bed IL not deeply muIched
Look out for rabbits in young or
chards. Head them off by means Of
preventive measures il they have not
already attacked the trees; if' they
have, cover the wounds they have made
In the bark with grating wax, with
some kind of asphaltum paint or even
with mud thickly applied. As has been
stated in this column. a thick Goa
whitewash to which has been added
enough crude carbolic acid to give the
mixture strong odor will keep rab-
bits away and will also prevent in
jury by field mice The acid in the
mixture, carried down the trunks of the
trees by rain. and impreenating the
soil around the roots, will also help
materially TO keep borers and other
'arval pests away from the trees.
A resident of a nearby Maryland sub
urb. keeping chickens on rather a
large scale, recently tried the expert
ment of furnishing the pullets in one
colony house with warm water three
times day, while the same number o
pulIets OF the same age and breed In
another colony house were given only
cold water. Each house contained fifty
puilets- Within ten days after begin
ming the experiment the pullets receiv-
ing the warm water were laying at the
rate of more than so per cent the daily
average number of eggs from them
being twenty-nine. while the fifty pull
let's in the other house, getting only
cold water. have never laid more than
fourteen eggs in any one day. II may
De Saiu tne leeu ration IS exactly the
same for both colonies. The expert
meEter figures that at the price he re-
ceives for the eggs he sells, 60 cents a
dozen. the warm water given three
times a day to the one colony is worth
$3.50 a week to him.
Peaches and other stone fruits in th's
section are victims OF s. new insec;
pest the discovery of which IL an
nounced by entomolopists of the De-
partment Of Agriculture. The larval
form Of the pest is Il small pink and
white caterpillar that attacks both the
young growth and the fruit, while the
adult stage of the pest Is in the form
OF small brownish moth. The pest has
an imposing Latin name and is Thought
to have been imported from Japan. So
far as Is known. the pest has not as yet
appeared In any other part of the
United States except this immedia te
vicinity. 1t is a borer and IL TO be
fought the same as other pests of this
general type.