14. How shall I build a martin house?
A Martin house can be built almost any style desired, say on a miniature scale of your own house; supposing your house is thirty feet square, build your bird house on the inch scale, which will be thirty inches square; or if you want to build a smaller house, build it on the half-inch scale.
By all means have a system to build on. I once heard a colored man say he didn’t fear the average human family near as much as he did a yellowjackets’ nest, “’cos de hohnets am so doggone well ohganized.”
The rooms in a martin house should be not less than six, and not over eight, inches square. The door should be level with the floor, same as our dwellings, the doorstep or verandah one-half inch lower than the floor or door. Door should be one and one-half inches wide made in any style desired.
White is the best color to paint, trimmed to suit your own taste.
To set house up, first put in two ordinary fence-posts, about four to six inches apart, four feet in the ground and four out. Now put the martin house pole between the two posts, with pole about three inches from the ground. Bore half-inch holes right through all three, one hole about three inches from the top of fence-posts, another about six inches from the ground, and bolt all three together through these holes. This leaves the pole high and dry, and by taking out the top bolt and loosening the bottom one, it permits you to raise and lower the house very easily when you want to clean it out or paint it in the fall. If left up, stop the door to keep out the “flying rats.”
Now don’t think it a difficult job to build a martin house. It is a sunny pastime.
Some years ago I happened to be in Brantford, Ontario, when a telephone call requested me to come over to the School for the Blind and give them a talk on birds. A second thought caused me to answer, Yes, and the accompanying plate will prove that these dear children listened to me, and I can assure you I listened to them, as several of these smart lads told me how and where they had “seen” different things. At the close, a vote of thanks was moved; the seconder, a youth of about sixteen, used some words I shall never forget. He said, “It is a pleasure to me to second this motion, but coupled with it I just wish to say, dear Uncle Jack Miner, that although we have never seen the sun, we are not blind; we can plainly see all you have been telling us. People often speak of the night being dark. With us there is no darkness. It is all light.”
In a few months the boys sent me the accompanying photograph of a martin house constructed by their own hands.
This last June I visited a few towns on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence River. I took particular notice of the beautiful little parks, the neat way in which they were kept, etc. Really, fifty dollars put into a nice, neat martin house would add thousands of dollars to the attractiveness of these grounds, for I never saw more purple martins in my life where there were no bird houses than there were around those quaint, ancient Canadian towns, but not a bird house. The martins appeared to be building in the eave-troughs and the cornices of some of the old buildings.