The Amateur Poacher by Richard Jefferies

author: Richard Jefferies

published: 1879

language: English

wordcount: 55,680 / 158 pg

In this work the poacher's character is noway minced. Poaching is no longer an amusement, but a hard, prosaic business, a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, requiring a long-headed, shrewd fellow, with a power of silence, capable of a delicacy of touch which almost raises poaching into a fine art.

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ce and sailed away. Then, looking out again, there was a pair of ears in the grass not ten yards distant: a rabbit had come out at last. But the first delight was quickly over: the ears were short and sharply pointed, and almost pinkly transparent.

What would the shepherd say if I brought home one of his hated enemies no bigger than a rat? The young rabbit made waiting still more painful, being far enough from the hedge to get a clear view into the recess if anything attracted his notice. Why the shepherd hated rabbits was because the sheep would not feed where they had worn their runs in the grass. Not the least movement was possible now--not even that little shifting which makes a position just endurable: the heat seemed to increase; the thought of Ulysses could hardly restrain the almost irresistible desire to stir.

When, suddenly, there was a slight rustling among the boughs of an oak in the other hedge, as of wings against twigs: it was a woodpigeon, better game than a rabbit. He would, I knew, fir

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The Amateur Garden by George Washington Cable

author: George Washington Cable

published: 1914

language: English

wordcount: 37,577 / 114 pg

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rs ago, and because of its unsafety is being taken down at the present writing.]

This ravine, the middle one of the grove's three, is about a hundred feet wide. When I first began to venture the human touch in it, it afforded no open spot level enough to hold a camp-stool. From the lawn above to the river road below, the distance is three hundred and thirty feet, and the fall, of fifty-five feet, is mostly at the upper end, which is therefore too steep, as well as too full of varied undergrowth, for any going but climbing. In the next ravine on its left there was a clear, cold spring and in the one on its right ran a natural rivulet that trickled even in August; but this middle ravine was dry or merely moist.

Here let me say to any who would try an amateur landscape art on their own acre at the edge of a growing town, that the town's growth tends steadily to diminish the amount of their landscape's natural water supply by catching on street pavements and scores and hundreds of roofs, lawns and w

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Amateur Fish Culture by Charles Edward Walker

author: Charles Edward Walker

published: 1901

language: English

wordcount: 21,055 / 67 pg

My aim, in this little book, has been to give information and hints which will prove useful to the amateur. Some of the plans and apparatus suggested would not be suitable for fish culture on a large scale, but my object has been to confine myself entirely to operations on a small scale. I have to thank the Editor of Land and Water for permission to publish in book form what first appeared as a series of articles.

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better sport than coarse fish.

The introduction of salmon into a river is not likely to be attempted by the amateur, but the head of salmon frequenting a river is undoubtedly affected in the most marvellous manner by artificial means. In Canada and the United States this is particularly remarkable, but the operations are conducted on a gigantic scale.

In the case of a stream or river where brown trout already exist, or have recently existed, in fair numbers, re-stock with these fish, for they can hardly be bettered in our waters. There are, however, some sluggish rivers where brown trout do not thrive when they are introduced. In such rivers and in many ponds in the South of England I believe that no better fish exists than the rainbow trout. I say particularly in the south, because I do not think that the rainbow trout will ever really thrive and breed in cold waters. I have at other times given numerous examples which go to show that the rainbow will only thrive in warm waters.[1] I will ther

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Alaska Days with John Muir by Samual Hall Young

author: Samual Hall Young

published: 1915

language: English

wordcount: 31,566 / 95 pg

In this fascinating account of John Muir's travels in Alaska from 1879 to 1880, we are brought into an intimate acquaintance with this great interpreter of Nature by one who was his companion on many expeditions.

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on it, so that, while its surface was full of man-traps and blind ways, the human spider might still find some hold for his claws.

The shadows were dark upon us, but the lofty, icy peaks of the main range still lay bathed in the golden rays of the setting sun. There was no time to be lost. A quick glance to the right and left, and Muir, who had steered his course wisely across the glacier, attacked the cliff, simply saying, "We must climb cautiously here."

Now came the most wonderful display of his mountain-craft. Had I been alone at the feet of these crags I should have said, "It can't be done," and have turned back down the mountain. But Muir was my "control," as the Spiritists say, and I never thought of doing anything else but following him. He thought he could climb up there and that settled it. He would do what he thought he could. And such climbing! There was never an instant when both feet and hands were not in play, and often elbows, knees, thighs, upper arms, and even chin must grip an

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Agriculture for Beginners Revised Edition by Charles William Burkett

author: Charles William Burkett

co-authors: Daniel Harvey Hill,Frank Lincoln Stevens

published: 1903

language: English

wordcount: 75,730 / 229 pg

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spread over with rich soil."

The joint action of air, moisture, and frost was still another agent of soil-making. This action is called weathering. Whenever you have noticed the outside stones of a spring-house, you have noticed that tiny bits are crumbling from the face of the stones, and adding little by little to the soil. This is a slow way of making additions to the soil. It is estimated that it would take 728,000 years to wear away limestone rock to a depth of thirty-nine inches. But when you recall the countless years through which the weather has striven against the rocks, you can readily understand that its never-wearying activity has added immensely to the soil.

In the rock soil formed in these various ways, and indeed on the rocks themselves, tiny plants that live on food taken from the air began to grow. They grew just as you now see mosses and lichens grow on the surface of rocks. The decay of these plants added some fertility to the newly formed soil. The life and death of

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After London or Wild England by Richard Jefferies

author: Richard Jefferies

published: 1885

language: English

wordcount: 82,170 / 234 pg

After some sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature, and the few survivors to a quasi-medieval way of life. Beginning with a loving description of nature reclaiming England -- fields becoming overrun by forest, domesticated animals running wild, roads and towns becoming overgrown, the hated London reverting to lake and poisonous swampland -- the rest of the story is an adventure set many years later in the wild landscape.

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ound their dogs abandon the fold, and join the wild troops that fell upon the sheep. The black wood-dogs hunt in packs of ten or more (as many as forty have been counted), and are the pest of the farmer, for, unless his flocks are protected at night within stockades or enclosures, they are certain to be attacked. Not satisfied with killing enough to satisfy hunger, these dogs tear and mangle for sheer delight of blood, and will destroy twenty times as many as they can eat, leaving the miserably torn carcases on the field. Nor are the sheep always safe by day if the wood-dogs happen to be hungry. The shepherd is, therefore, usually accompanied by two or three mastiffs, of whose great size and strength the others stand in awe. At night, and when in large packs, starving in the snow, not even the mastiffs can check them.

No wood-dog, of any kind, has ever been known to attack man, and the hunter in the forest hears their bark in every direction without fear. It is, nevertheless, best to retire out of thei

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Afoot in England by W.H. Hudson

author: W.H. Hudson

published: 1909

language: English

wordcount: 81,378 / 228 pg

Mr. Hudson is a nature-lover, but above all a bird-lover, and it was his quest for a more intimate acquaintance with the bird-life of the English Countryside that led him "afoot" on many of these pilgrimages through un-frequented England, of which he gives us such attractive glimpses. Never before published in America, and long out of print in England.

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That the tradition is not true no one can say. We know that the memory of an action or tragedy of a character to stir the feelings and impress the imagination may live unrecorded in any locality for long centuries. And more, we know or suppose, from at least one quite familiar instance from Flintshire, that a tradition may even take us back to prehistoric times and find corroboration in our own day.

But of this story what corroboration is there, and what do the books say? I have consulted the county history, and no mention is made of such a tradition, and can only assume that the author had never heard it--that he had not the curious Aubrey mind. He only says that it is a very early church --how early he does not know--and adds that it was built "for the convenience of the inhabitants of the place." An odd statement, seeing that the place has every appearance of having always been what it is, a forest, and that the inhabitants thereof are weasels, foxes, jays and such-like, and doubtless in for

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