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There were strange plants too, growing in the fields and garden, and vines trained upon espaliers, and corn-cribs filled with yellow corn, and dove-cotes, and martin-boxes, with swallows twittering around them. All formed a curious but pleasing picture. We had sauntered about for an hour, when we were summoned to dinner. "Follow me, gentlemen," said our host, as he led the way to the house.
On my way South, I told him, I had noticed these dangling long-necked squashes everywhere, and had wondered what they were for. I had found out since that they were the colored man's martin-boxes, and was glad to see the people so fond of the birds. "Yes," he said, "there's no danger of hawks carrying off the chickens as long as the martins are round."
Sometimes the crow blackbirds make their homes at a distance from the water, and occasionally they choose odd places, such as the tops of tall pine trees, the spires of churches, martin-boxes in gardens and holes in trees.
The public edifices, consisting of two or three small churches and the amtman's residence, are little better than martin-boxes. For some reason best known to the people in these Northern climes, they paint their houses black, except where the roofs are covered with sod, which nature paints green.
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