278 THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



physician who started out to keep re- We are not urging the question of 



cords and thereby to prove a theory, economy. We are speaking from the 



He obtained a spotless blank book and amateur's point of view. YVe are after 



began to jot down experiences. He not only results that please, but 



had a Frenchman very ill with a cer- methods in achieving those results that 



tain fewer and after the crisis had been please as well. I should not lay aside 



passed he prescribed chicken soup. A the better hoe and the better fishing 



little later he had a German afflicted nole if 1 were a user of either, because 



with the same fever and as he conval- some one with inferior tools produced 



esced the physician prescribed chicken better results than I with my good 



son]), but the man died. The medical ones. Nor would I accept those results 



youth wrote this conclusion in his as an argument why 1 should teach 



book: chicken soup is good for a others to dig with a board, or fish with 



Frenchman but it will kill a Dutchman a bent pin. This magazine is addressed 



every time. The rectilinear lens may to those that believe that nature is 



be good for Mr. Kellogg or for Mr. the best thing in the world, and not to 



but in the hands of a less ex- those that occasionally turn their at- 



perienced person it will in nine cases tention to nature for a moment, and 

 out of ten kill the grandeur out of pho- from this point of view I say Live up 

 tography. up to your highest possibilities. If you 

 Not a long time ago I saw a state- cannot get a good lens, do the best you 

 ment by an experienced photographer can with a bent pin, but if you really 

 of birds to the effect that he doubted love the art you will throw aside that 

 whether the anastigmat has superior inferior camera and strain every nerve 

 qualities that warrant the superior to get a better one. I fancy some one 

 price, and undoubtedly that question will say that I have not proved my 

 arises occasionally in the minds of the contention that the rectilinear is the 

 most devoted users of the high-priced inferior and that the anastigmat is the 

 lenses. But there should be taken into better. I cannot prove it, and no manu- 

 consideration their pictures with the facturer should attempt to prove it by 

 ease and surety and satisfaction of depending wholly on quality of work, 

 making them. As I write these words, There is no denying the fact that a 

 especially the word "satisfaction," there rectilinear stopped down and given 

 comes to mind a memory of my boy- plenty of time will produce, giving it 

 hood. Charles and I sat under a chest- enough time on a still object, as good 

 nut tree. He had an old muzzle-load- results as will the anastigmat wide 

 ing, flint-lock gun, and by his side lay open. But the trouble is that most of 

 several squirrels and one or two rab- the things that one photographs are 

 bits. I had a double-barreled, car- not test charts nor still objects. Give 

 tridge-loading shot gun of the most ap- plenty of time to the adjust and to fire 

 proved pattern, but I had few speci- the old flint-lock and it will kill just as 

 mens in the game bag. I have changed surely as the breech-loader, but when 

 my mind since then as to the satisfac- I shoulder the camera and start for the 

 tion of hunting, but taking it from the fields I want to feel that with me I 

 boyish point of view, although Charles have the ability to take anything that 

 had surpassed me in the matter of game comes along and not only in the best 

 I would not, even in those days, have but in the most satisfactory manner, 

 exchanged my joy and satisfaction in Do not judge the pictures of The 

 the better gun for his better filling of Guide to Nature, even those taken by 

 the game bag. Would you? But ac- me as an argument for or against anas- 

 cording to your contention I should tigmat lenses, because you can take the 

 have profited by that experience. I range of my work of fifteen years ago 

 should have told the boys in the neigh- and pick out some things just as good, 

 borhood that if they wanted to get a The argument is not in the thing itself 

 good supply of game in the bag they but in the percentage. Fifteen years 

 must get a flint lock and muzzle loader, ago, perhaps two out of a hundred 



