and one which might yield particularly to the ladies. It
is very pretty work, it is nice work. It includes idealism, speculation,
the idea of developing new trees, or trees that one has never seen
before. After many failures in hybridizing I find now that by following
rules it is simplified very much. Almost any one who is persistent
enough may learn eventually to hybridize very easily.

The question of labeling trees and of keeping track of different
specimens was one that gave me many disappointments. I would lose the
labels, lose the records, so I was not able to tell truthfully about
trees when visitors came to ask me about them. I know in one lot where I
had a lot of hybrid trees, each one marked with a stake and number, the
cow of a neighbor got over the fence into the field and the boy who came
after that refractory cow found that to pull up those stakes gave him
very convenient objects for throwing at the cow, and my labels were all
hybridized.

This sort of thing was the kind of disappointments that I had in early
experiences in growing nut trees. It is very essential, however, to keep
good records and I find now that the best way is to use a galvanized
iron rod with a metallic tag stamped with a machine and fastened on in
such a way that it will not be injured by any sort of use. These
galvanized rods, galvanized spring wire, are very durable if one is
careful about placing them on the trees. That experience in keeping the
labels was one which was very disappointing at first, but the question
has now been finally settled.

The number of animals and birds that like a good thing is perfectly
surprising, and in trying to raise my seedling nuts I have had great
difficulty and have had to take up a new department of natural history
in order to study the habits of rodents and of the birds. The crows have
been, perhaps, the worst enemy, after the field mice, of the seedling
nuts that were planted out in the field. But the crows may be kept away
if we put up bean poles with a simple cotton string stretched between
them at a distance of twenty-five or thirty feet. One of my friends who
took my advice said that it didn't work, that he had not only put up the
string but had fastened a piece of tin onto the string. That is just
where he made a failure. The crows sized up the situation immediately.
They sat on the fence and looked it over and made up their minds that
those things were not meant for them, and then they w