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Jul 15, 2010
Experiment has shown that if heat is allowed to accumulate in the leaf of a tree unchecked by evaporation the temperature rises at a rate of twelve degrees centigrade a minute. The results, of course, are very rapidly fatal to the tree, or indeed plant. The amount of water taken from the soil by a tree in the course of an active summer day is enormous.
Jul 15, 2010
As a student of Nature, I often call the leaves on trees laboratories. They are, in fact, something more. They serve as chemical factories where the lifeless, inorganic material taken from air, sunshine, and soil is transformed into the living, organic material that makes up the plant.
Jul 15, 2010
We sat on the edge of a high cliff on the island of St. George facing north to watch the return of the least auklets that live in a great colony among the boulders. These little seafowls, called by the native Aleuts "choochkies" (pronounced chewtskie), are plump in body, but not much larger than an English sparrow. You see them sitting on the rocks of the boulder beaches, bowing and chattering.
Jul 15, 2010
The white and blue foxes of St. George Island in the Bering Straits are not different species, but merely represent two color-phases of the same animal, just as a black bear may sometimes come into the world with a brown coat. At the back of the village the land sloped away toward a high rocky hill with the summit nearly a thousand feet above the ocean.
Jul 15, 2010
The woodcock lays its eggs, almost always four in number, in a hollowed place in last year's blanket of leaves. Though they seem large for the size of the bird, they are so cunningly marked with buff and brown that the closest scrutiny often fails to reveal them on their leaf bed. In Louisiana and Florida, the southern limit, the bird may lay in January or even December.
Jul 15, 2010
Like most country boys of early America I learned to hunt and in the course of time, among other species that were sacrificed that I might examine closely their plumage and structure, a woodcock fell to my none too certain aim. I shall never forget with what delight I examined the long slender bill, with its sensitive and flexible tip, with which the marshy ground is probed for worms
Jul 15, 2010
There are many sounds in Nature that delight the ear. The songs of birds, without which the green countryside would be almost a dreary place; the shrill, whistling bugle note of the whitetail deer which uttered only at night and which is one of the rarest and wildest of all woods sounds; the guttural, mysterious voices of migrating herons dropping down through the blackness overhead;
Jul 15, 2010
Out punting along the shore of the lagoon one day, orchard orioles sang from time to time, and farther away, in high pinewoods beyond, crested flycatchers and red-bellied woodpeckers were calling. But, for the most part, the bird voices which we heard as we paddled along our serpentine watery path were the shrill whistles of ospreys who had built their bulky castles of sticks in cypresses beside our way, and the harsh voices of herons of several kindsgreat blue and little blue herons.
Jul 15, 2010
May is the month of migrant warblers, for in this month nine-tenths of our stock of these beautiful and delicate birds pass northward through our forests. A few are of limited range in the South, and scarcely leave our borders for the winter. But many summer in our northern states and in Canada, and in winter go far south.
Jul 15, 2010
Trees should be planted when growth is sleeping in them, that is, in the spring, when the frost is out of the ground and before the season's growth begins, or in the fall after they have gotten their year's growth. This varies in different localities and your State Forester can advise you. In planting the trees you should give each young member of your forest crop a space of about six feet around it in all directions.
Jul 15, 2010
People plant trees not only for their beauty, their shade, and their ornamental value but also because they appreciate the importance of reforestation. We have in this country today more than eighty million acres of idle land, once forested, but now producing nothing, even being unsuitable for ordinary agriculture. What, you may ask, has the planting of a tree got to do with all of this? Nothing if you do not catclh the inspiration of the tree's message.
Jul 15, 2010
If trees are planted in large groups ordinary cultivation may be given. When the trees are planted as specimens or are scattered, such as along the street, digging of the soil in a circle around the tree to a depth of three or four inches will aid the tree in its growth. In order to conserve the moisture in the soil around newly-planted trees the ground may be mulched with leaves, straw, litter, or a layer of dust formed by stirring and pulverizing the soil to a depth of an inch.
Jul 15, 2010
Can you imagine a world without trees? Yes, very easily, for you at once see a desert in which nothing can live. Do you realize that the human race would pass from the earth were it not for trees? The tree-planter plants for those of tomorrow not for us of today. He looks into the future, as any man or any nation must that wants to leave the world a bit better than he found it.
Jul 15, 2010
A generation ago there was little restraint on the slaughter of our shore birds, and at the time of passage of the migratory bird law several had become alarmingly scarce. One, indeed, the Eskimo curlew, was virtually extinct. Under the operations of this law, and the international treaty that followed it, most of the species have increased, though the snipe, the two species of yellowlegs, and the woodcock, are still classed as game birds, and may be killed under certain conditions.
Jul 15, 2010
The trained dog unerringly points out the woodcock's lurking place, and the bird's tameness allows the hunter to place himself in the most advantageous position for a shot: and thus the proportion of birds killed is probably greater than in the case of any other game bird. Many hunters claim more than a fifty per cent kill of woodcock started; one killed thirty-eight out of forty-one flushed.
Jul 15, 2010
Three-quarters of a century ago Frank Forester, Lewis, and other thoughtful sportsmen began to urge the greater protection of that most lovely of birds: the woodcock. These early efforts were directed mainly toward the abolition of summer and spring shooting, which caused the destruction of many young birds scarcely able to fly, or the parents of still helpless young. Gradually both summer and spring shooting were outlawed, in Rhode Island as early as 1846, and in Ohio in 1857.
Jul 15, 2010
Many years ago, when a boy in Massachusetts, I used to hear in a swampy thicket across the road from our house a strange note, a harsh rasping buzz. The time was always the dusk of the evening, in early spring. I knew the place well; it was grown up to high-bush blueberries, and hardhack, and alder, with here and there a young red maple rising above the general level.
Jul 14, 2010
Fundraisers, as stressful as they are, can be fun if you just know how to organize. But before you decide to dive headfirst into the project, you need to make sure that youll be dedicated to your cause.
Jul 14, 2010
Solar garden lights are a rapid, easy, and efficient answer to a garden lighting problem. Solar mechanical lights can be put along your yard or landscaping and moved at will, needs little installation or commitment.
Jul 14, 2010
Making landmark and historic buildings energy efficient is often difficult due to restrictions on alterations that can be made. What measures are Buckingham Palace taking to make this British landmark greener and how are they working.
Jul 14, 2010
As a nation we are using more energy than ever so it makes sense that we should be turning to environmentally friendly energy sources like wind turbines. Using wind turbines can be a cost-effective way of providing clean and renewable energy for your home or business.
Jul 14, 2010
Ever since the law of gravity decreed that water must not run uphill, trees have played the role of recreant. In tree trunks the sap rises seemingly in direct defiance of this edict. And since science insists on finding some rational explanation when well-defined laws of Nature appear to be violated, she has persistently tried to explain the hidden forces that cause the upward flow of this vital fluid in living plants.
Jul 14, 2010
The most beautiful gardens you have ever seen, gardens of great country estates where paid gardeners tend the plants, bring comparatively little pleasure to their owners. If the owner of a garden feels that his garden is perfect he will not be a gardener long. Dallas Lore Sharp once wrote an essay on seed catalogs. The modern seed catalog is itself a thing of wonder and beauty; but, oh, the marvels that it promises; oh, the dreams of appetite and art that it inspires.
Jul 14, 2010
The methods that the gardener pursues are the fundamental beginnings of scientific research. The principles that he discovers for combatting destructive agents are the very principles underlying forest and wild life protection. Thus the planting and tending of a garden is the expression of Nature Instinct found in varying degrees in every human being.
Jul 14, 2010
The cruising boat of a scientific expedidition in British Columbia swept around a bend in the channel and members of the party crowded forward with mingled exclamations of surprise and curiosity. The port of Simoon Sound lay directly aheada cluster of shanties built on rafts moored close to a rocky precipice.
Jul 13, 2010
Don't let the phone calls you make when you are traveling to a different country cost you an arm and a leg. Quad Band World Phones are not as expensive as you might think.
Jul 13, 2010
This article provides detailed calculations in support of the claim by CO2 Tropical Trees that the average fast growing tropical tree sequesters 22.6 kg or 50 lbs of carbon per year. Several different approaches to carbon calculations are discussed, citing a number of scientific papers on the subject. It concludes that funding the planting of tropical trees is a viable method of removing carbon from the atmosphere in the fight against climate change.
Jul 12, 2010
The idea of the "home of the future" usually contrasts with the idea of environmental responsibility. The perception of technology being detrimental to ecologicial stability is slowly being replaced with the advent of smart technologies such as Suspended Particle Device or SPD glass.
Jul 12, 2010
In this article I investigate how to make Make Solar Panel At Home.Looking in detail at how this technology can help enormously lower your power bills.
Jul 11, 2010
Whats in a name? One answer to this well-known query may be found in the host of names given to the caterpillars or larvae of a large family of moths. There are various common, general and local names applied to these insects, among which we find "spanworms," "measuring worms," "inchworms," "measurers," "loopers" and "surveyors."
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