FISHES AND FISHING IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 283 



the original owner to cut trees, as it is sometimes compelled to do in order 

 to acquire the lands at all, the enforcement of the protective regulations should 

 be followed up with the greatest watchfulness and effectiveness. Of course, 

 this is exceedingly difficult in such a secluded and wide area. 



Laws should be enacted controlling the methods of lumbering on forest lands 

 owned by private individuals or companies; on the same general principle that in 

 cities the erection of buildings may be controlled in the way of preventing fires. 

 It cannot reallv be difficult to frame legislation to compel individual owners to so 

 use their own property as not to imperil the property of their neighbors, whether 

 their neighbors be the State or individuals. 



Again, there ought to be a permanent State law against fishing the small streams 

 in the Adirondacks. It is not easy to say in a statute what a "small stream " is, and 

 perhaps some provision could be framed leaving that as a designation to be applied 

 by the Forest, Fish and Game Commission to certain streams and the provisions 

 modified from time to time. At all events, fishing in fish nurseries should be 

 absolutely prohibited if any protective laws whatever are worth having. 



Limiting the number or quantity of trout one person in one day may take 

 would certainly be wise. The Forest Preserve belonging to all the people, and 

 its fishing privileges and fish being theirs in common, and since there is not now 

 "enough to go around," legal restraint of those who selfishly would take more 

 than their share is right in principle and has become necessary. The golden rule 

 needs to be put on the statute books, with penalties to back it up to make it 

 effective — the millenium not yet having arrived. 



With all these provisions accomplished and in working order, the State and 

 club hatcheries would play a still more effective and important part in their 

 attempt to restore the sportsman's paradise lost. With the clubs owning and 

 protecting their own preserves, they accomplish their object. The forest — 

 their portion of it — is kept intact; the streams do not dry up; forest fires are 

 prevented; small streams are sacred to the fingerling trout; the individual catch 

 is limited to a reasonable number or weight; there are "rest days" for the fish, in 

 which they gambol and leap and take flies without fear of a barbed hook; and 

 the gray haired old sportsman who knew the virgin Adirondacks, as he passes 

 through these parks, dreams of the old elysium, feels anew the thrill which in 

 his younger days filled every nerve with delight. 



Those who are inclined to rebel against the fact that men of wealth have 

 appropriated the best parts of the Adirondacks and closed the gates to all but 

 themselves and their friends have this to console them, that but for these rich 

 men and clubs the same senseless and destructive abuse of the forest and fish 



