548 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



In the Forested North Country. 



ONE OF the delights MADE POSSIBLE BY THE USE OF THE FORESTS FOR RECREATION. 



at least one of them he cannot feed 

 himself, cannot take his share of the 

 food that is spread abundantly in her 

 scheme of things, cannot support him- 

 self in her world. 



Of what avail is the most exhaustive 

 knowledge of botany, of bird life, of 

 photography, of canoe and camp craft, 

 if a man is impotent to secure for himself 

 the food to keep life in his body ! Need 

 be or need not be, one should be able 

 to say: "This game I can take, in case 

 of necessity; I have the conquering 

 skill to wrest from Nature my share of 

 her bounty, nor all her wiles nor all her 

 wariness shall deny me! I am a whole 

 man! I can support myself in this 

 world of hers and still have the time to 

 pursue such studies as interest me!" 



Choose one of the Six Arts or choose 

 them all; there is infinite pleasure in 

 store for you in acquiring the skill to 

 use them efficiently. And none of 

 them is essentially a young man's art. 

 Unlike the strenuous labors of the foot- 

 ball field, the diamond, the tennis 

 court, there is nothing in the Six Arts 

 that demands the muscles of youth; 

 nothing that is forbidden to the settled 

 and less flexible bodily organs of age. 



The steady hand that sights the rifle; 

 the swift arm that points the shotgun; 

 the delicate muscles that wield the 

 trout rod, or place the bass lure with 

 ease and accuracy, or cast the pyramid 

 sinker out into the ocean's surf, belong 

 quite as much if not more to the grey- 

 beard as to the youth. Beginner's 

 awkw^ardness there will be, at first, and 

 the training of many little muscles long 

 since atrophied by the disuse of civiliza- 

 tion, but the older man, with his keener 

 directing mind, is likely to acquire 

 proficiency sooner than impatient and 

 careless youth, too prone to tolerate 

 faults that make for poor fomi. 



In the most representative body of 

 sportsmen that I know, the Camp Fire 

 Club of America, the best rifie shots, the 

 winners with the fly rod, with the re- 

 volver and the baitcasting rod, are 

 grey-haired men in their fifties — the 

 younger element is not to be compared 

 with them in these essentials of the 

 outdoorsmen. The latter win in the 

 canoe and portage, horse packing, 

 tomahawk, and to a certain extent with 

 the shotgun; but the grey-beards out- 

 shoot them and outcast them when it 



