506 



FOREST A1NJL> STREAM. 



A "WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



DEVOTED TO FIELD AND AQUATIC SPOBTB, PRACTICAL NATTOAL HISTOBT, 

 Fran Culture, ths Protection of Game, Preservation op Fobbsts, 



lun mn» TwniTTnimnM rw Mow ivn AATf\MTT>i Qp £ .A^VALTHY INTERBST 



PUBLISHED BY 



4£0*ttii und $tnsnt §tthlishinq $aw$xt($.. 



—AT— 



NO. Ill FULTON STREET, NEW YORK, 



(POST OFFICE BOX 5832,1 



TERMS, FOUR DOLLARS A YEAR, STRICTLY IN ADVANCE. 



Advertising Kates. 



Inside pages, nonpareil type, 25 cents per line ; outside page, 40 cents. 

 Special rates lor three, six and twelve months. NotlceB In editorial 

 columns, SO cents per line— eight words to the line, and twelve lines to 

 one Inch, 



Advertisements shoald be sent m by Saturday of each week, If pos- 

 sible. 



All transient advertisements must be accompanied with the money 

 or they will not be Inserted. 



No advertisement or business notice of an Immoral charaoter will be 

 received on any terms. 



V" Any publisher Inserting our prospectus as above one time, with 

 brief editorial notice calling attention thereto, and sending marked copy 

 io us, will receive the Fobest and Strbam for one year. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1879. 



To Correspondents. 



AU communications whatever, Intended for publication, must be ac- 

 companied with real name of the writer as a guaranty of good faith 

 and be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Company. 

 Names will not be published If objection be made. HoanODymous com- 

 munications will be regarded. 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Secretaries of OlnbB and Associations are urged to favor na with brief 

 notes of their movements and transactions. 



Nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that may 

 not be read with propriety in the home circle. 



We cannot be responsible for dereliction of the mail service if money 

 remitted to us is lost. 



tr Trade supplied by American News Company. 



Honoes. — Hon. Orville .H. Pratt, of Meriden, ConD., who 

 ia well known among his many friends as a lover of the sports 

 of the field, has been elected to the United States Senate. Mr. 

 Pratt is well worthy of the position and will most certainly 

 fill it with credit and ability. 



The Fxbxd Trials Controversy. — In our next issue we 

 shall briefly review this little family quarrel, and, now that 

 all the judges and parties most directly interested have had 

 their say through the columns of our journal, it is possible 

 that the editor may deem it worth while to exhibit the facts 

 and occurrences in the case as they came under his personal 

 observation. 



Says thb Quail. — Our news columns this week contain 

 frequent mention of the fatal effects of the snow upon the 

 birds. We have already spoken at length of the necessity of 

 giving food and shelter to the birds, and again call the atten- 

 tion of our readers to this important subject. We are glad 

 to see that several of our most active game clubs are taking 

 very commendable action in the matter. Their trouble will 

 be more than repaid. 



Behind the Times.— Seth Green's letter concerning eels, 

 contributed to this paper, having found its way into the 

 "patent outsides," is now traveling about the country news- 

 papers with the concluding remarks, that " The eel question 

 is still open." Keep up with the day, Mr. Country Editor. 

 Bon't buy old matter, even if it is cheap. Read Fobest and 

 Stream and the scales will fall from your eyes. 



A Most Unconscionable Literacy Pie ate.— The most 

 systematic and unprincipled literary thief we know — and we 

 know a good many of tbem— is the Canadian Gentleman's 

 Journal and Sporting Times, a semi-sporting sheet published 

 at Toronto, Canada. To prove our assertion we need only 

 refer to the scores of articles taken from our own columns 

 without the slightest credit being given for their source. A 

 paper so utterly devoid of honor and unsupported by brains 

 should suspend. 



rrjTFoBEST and Stream will be sent for six months for $2, 

 or for three months for $1. To clubs of five or more, $3 per 

 year. 



THE NATIONAL MILITIA MOVEMENT. 



THE convention of gentlemen connected wilh the regular 

 and volunteer military forces of the country, which 

 met in this city during the past week, began in a very quiet 

 way and with little blowing of trumpets a task, which, when 

 carried out to the extent which even the most moderate- 

 minded among its members would hope for, is destined to 

 work a great change iu the power and prospects of this 

 country. These gentlemen propose to carry out a plan by 

 which the whole country shall be provided with a civic-mili- 

 tary force which shall give us as a nation, not only a defense 

 against ourselves in cases of domestic disturbance, but a 

 power of resistance iu the contingency of a foreign invasion. 



The project is one which no one will object to on its gener- 

 al merits, and the only question open for discussion and for 

 settlement by deliberation and legislation is the manner of 

 carrying it out and the extent to which it should be carried. 

 While we have in our conscription laws given to Congress the 

 undoubted right to draw every able-bodied citizen into the 

 ranks of the army, a very wise conservatism on the part of 

 the people and of respect to private rights on the part of the 

 Government will prevent us from plunging into the Prussian 

 military system. Such a permanent harassing system would 

 be universally distasteful to the American people ; nor on the 

 other hand do we want a large standing army of professional 

 soldiers lolling about army posts living upon the cream of 

 the land and growing fat and insolent at the expense of 

 the tax-payers. While we have our Indian wards, who recog- 

 nize civilization only at sword's-point, we may have real work 

 for a few professional killers-of-men, and that after, in taking 

 care of Federal property, the skeleton of an army may find ser- 

 vice as armorers, etc. But the idea of having a regular army suf- 

 ficient for all the uses of our vast land, is a preposterous one. 

 There never was a time when such was the case, and never 

 should be. Nevertheless, there must be a strong power some- 

 where in the Government or back of it, else our vast, un- 

 wieldy continent and nation will become the prey of the other 

 nations of the earth. That power is in the people, and how 

 best to get it out is the problem. The revolutionary fathers 

 saw this necessity, and saw, too, on many a day during the 

 dark seven years which preceded our bir h as a nation, where 

 and how that power was defective ; and the Constitution pro- 

 vides that Congress shall have power " to provide for organiz- 

 ing, arming and disciplining the militia;" and it ia to put 

 Congress in the way of exercising this power, of making this 

 section of the Constitution a living law, that the convention 

 spent two days discussing the outlines of a code. The old 

 laws of 1792 and 1808 are on the statute books, giving, with 

 great particularity, how each able-bodied male citizen shall be 

 enrolled and train, and shall have at hand a good firelock and 

 two spare flints, or else a good rifle with shot-pouch, powder- 

 horn, twenty balls, and a quarter of a pound of powder, white 

 every officer shall have his hanger and spontoon. If we need 

 nothing more we at least need a revamping and moderniza- 

 tion of these ancient rules and regulations, or we should mus- 

 ter like a Falstaffian brigade, or a party of mountebanks. We 

 need what the framers of the Constitution intended— a 

 strata of force spread over the whole country, able to crys- 

 talize at the shortest notice into a compact mass ready to give 

 and take, to crush or to resist, as it may be called upon. The 

 lessons of the Revolution, repeated in the war of 1812 and 

 again in the opening days of the Civil War, pointed to the 

 want of uniformity. The State troops rushed to the defense 

 of the nation more as an armed mob than as the steady ad- 

 vance of an intelligent force. They lacked the first requisite 

 of an army — organization. There are nice points of law to be 

 settled, and the matter is one to be handled with more than 

 the average of statesmanlike caution. The States are proper- 

 ly jealous of throwing themselves under the great car of 

 state to have their individuality crushed out ; and, on the 

 other hand, the Federal Government cannot afford to unbind 

 the girdle which keep us as a nation together by giving to the 

 States the power and the incentive to bind themselves up into 

 great armed Commonwealths. 



In general outline the bill proposed, despite its haziness ia 

 general and pettiness in detail, aims very near a serviceable 

 act. While laying down the principles of general military 

 duty, the act is devoted almost entirely to the encomagement 

 of that body of citizens who choose to make of themselves 

 soldiers so far as their civic duties will permit. These men 

 are to have one commission to devise a manual of discipline, 

 another board will fix upon a dress, and then the hand of the 

 N. Y. State Rifle Inspector is seen in a matter which would 

 grow up naturally after the general movement had taken root, 

 and before that it would be but a dumb show. ' 'First catch your 

 hare " is good advice here as elsewhere, and when the national 

 militia is established is time enough to offer prizes to encour- 

 age its members in rifle practice. This section is not only 

 premature, but its offer of $100 as gifts to State and $1,000 

 to National team shooting is petty, and has, as was well said, 

 a smack of the premium curomo business about it ? What 

 the bill will accomplish is the setting in motion of a system of 

 direct comparison, which will enable each State to judge itself 

 as against other States by an uniform standard. This is now 

 impossible, and the weaker States do not have their inferiori- 

 ty brought out in the strong light which it would be were 

 this exhibit made possible through the legislation proposed. 

 Emulation will be sufficiently strong to bring each Stale up 

 to a fairly effective condition, and where coaxing fails it is 

 pretty certain that the persuasion of force wilt be of no avail. 

 Public sentiment will swell the ranks to a million where the 



strong nrm of the government could not get a hundred men 

 in line, This public sentiment has grown dormant, the mere 

 passage of a law will not revive it, for there are to-day hun- 

 dreds of dead-letter laws on our statute book, and the gentle- 

 men of the convention will find that wilh the enactment of 

 the law they get merely the tool, and it will depend on the 

 vigor with which they wield it how great an effect it will 

 have. 



[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] 



A NEW ROUTE FOR SPORTSMEN. 



St. Paul, Minn., January 2, 1879. 

 H^LIE past autumn and beginning of winter, until within a 

 •*■ day or two, has been distinguished in Minnesota by most 

 charming weather. Old Boreas, while his dominion has been 

 severely felt in the whole middle belt from Kansas to New 

 York, has as yet hardly touched us with the tips of his chilly 

 fiugers. The most glorious Indian summer lingered here un- 

 til the beginning of December, then gradually, almost imper- 

 ceptibly, transforming into an equally delightful winter ; for 

 although the thermometer now often falls as low as zero and 

 below, the sunshine is so bright, the air so still, that out door 

 life is most enjoyable. Some migratory birds, at least some 

 mallards and jaeksnipe, remained in the bottoms and spring- 

 holes up till Christmas, and that not all of the latter had left as 

 late as yesterday I can myself bear witness; for walking along 

 Trout Brook, in the afternoon, I flushed a genuine Gal. (IVY- 

 sonii, within 300 yards of my house, from a big spring be- 

 tween Ed. Rice's pond and the railroad. 



Since you were with ub last September the Extension Line 

 of the St. Paul and Pacific railroad has been completed to its 

 terminus at the British boundary line. To the enterprise of 

 two business men of St. Paul, Messrs. Norman Kittson and 

 James J. Hill, aided by Canadian capital, and to the indomi- 

 table energy and push of the general manager and receiver of 

 said railroad, I. P. Farley, Minnesota and th whole North- 

 west beyond are indebted for successfully carrying through 

 this important improvement, which in connection with the 

 Pembina branch of the Canadian Pacific, makes a continuous 

 line of 483 miles, and binds together by ties of iron the capi- 

 tals of Minnesota and Manitoba. If we consider that this 

 line of railroad has opened for settlement in its whole length 

 the Bed River valley, the very cream of the cream of the great 

 Northwestern wheat belt, and that it has made Minnesota the 

 gateway for the enormous irrunigration and carrying-trade 

 now pouring into the vast British possessions to the north and 

 northwest of us, and making our State the nearest and natural 

 market for these new settlements, anl idea may be formed of 

 the importance of this improvement. 



But it is not only to the business man and agriculturist that 

 new fields have been opened by this line of railroad : it has 

 also made easy of access to the sportsman the most extensive 

 hunting grounds on this continent, and stocked with a greater 

 variety of game than may be found elsewhere within tho 

 limits of a single season's excursion. 



Starting from St. Paul by the main line of the St. Paul and 

 Pacific railroad, to the trains of which road elegant sleeping 

 cars are attached, thesportsmac-toini^t will in less than twenty- 

 four hours find himself in the lower Red River valley in the 

 northwestern corner of Minnesota. On the prairies anywhere 

 in this region the sbarptailed grouse is abundant, and iu the 

 timbered bottom lands of Red River and its numerous tribu- 

 taries there is good woodcock shooting and plenty of ruffed 

 grouse ! In the immediate vicinity of tho railroad a few set- 

 tlers have established themselves within the last year, but 

 towards the east, for a distance of 250 miles, extends an un- 

 broken, almost unexplored wilderness, where the deer, the 

 moose, the elk and the bear as yet roam in undisturbed secur 

 ity. 



Getting tired of venison, grouse and woodcock our sports- 

 man may again take the northward bound train, and a journey 

 of a few hours will land him in Winnipeg, the capital of Man- 

 itoba. 



He will here find a city of some 8,000 inhabitants, which in 

 the intelligence and cultivation of its people and substantial- 

 ity and even elegance of its buildings will lose nothing 

 when compar.d with any Western city of equal population 

 and much greater pretentions. The city ia prosperous, grow- 

 ing fast and doing an immense business, being the eKtripSt of 

 the whole British northwest. The hotel accommodations are 

 excellent ; and, having rested here, take Bteamer down Red 

 River and Lake Winnipeg to the mouth of Saskatchewan. 

 Here have your traps transferred to one of tho several steam- 

 boats plying on this gTeat stream. Once on board you may, by 

 this means of conveyance, without fatigue or trouble, reach the 

 heart of the continent and penetrate, if such should be your de- 

 sire, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The valley of the Sas- 

 katchewan is one of the finest and largest in America and des- 

 tined, at no distant future, to become one of the great grana- 

 ries of this country. It is as yet a great game resort. The 

 varieties are about the same as those of western Daeotab 

 Montana and Idaho— the buffalo (in untold multitudes), the 

 grizzly, black and cinnamom bear, the elk, deer and antelope, 

 and feathered game in great variety and abundance. At any 

 of the forts or trading-posts of the Hudson Bay Company— at 

 Cumberland House, for instance, at Fort Carleton, or at Bat- 

 tle-lord, the new capital of the Northwestern Territory— the 

 gentleman-sportsman will find hospitable reception by kin- 

 dred spirits, good accommodations and offers of every facility 

 and assistance. 



Returning to the mouth of the Saskatchewan, if there ia 



