NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUST 27,1874. 



l» 



For Foivst and Stre 

 THE AGED AGRICULTURIST. 



THE Aged Agriculturist 

 StUUl lhf.ii. sky allium; 

 The- reason why lie's ^itLin^ there — 

 His chairs are all at home. 



Though Main? in, or on, a gloam, 



1 cannot see the sense of; 

 To say he sat upon a fence 



Would be more onoffensive. 



And then, he has a stern look 



I ne\ er saw before. 

 Besides agun, which, like himself, 



is an old-fashioned bore. 



1 know his aged entiele 

 So old. and grim, and stout. 



Must hold a spirit hot within. 

 Despite his "cold without." 



"Ohl aged agriculturist!' ' 



I modestly exclaim. 

 "May I traverse your fair domain 



In search of lawful game*" 



"They was n man.'' the Granger grim 



Irrelevantly said — 

 "I'm kinder wait'in' remind fer him. 



I hope he isn't dead. 



"Air you a city sporting man » 

 An' dew you know a keuwf 



Don't pint yer gun areoiaid in me. 

 Or they will be a reow ! 



"I've lied experience before 



Along of city chaps. 

 You want to cross my land, you do? 



Wall, pr'apsyou kin— pie'h.ips. 



••Prehaps you'll tramp across m , gra 



And pr'aps, again, you won't; 

 Prehaus yoi 



Young u 



i, It 



•They was a man as travelled bore, 

 Him and his pooty pup- 

 lie does'iit travel here no more, 

 His sporting days ib up. 



"He axed to shoot across my lauds- 



I know a city feller. 

 And driv the keows to hum, and piu 



The children in the cellar. 



"And then I clumb atop a tree, 

 And said I guessed he motlt. 



1 didn't, know my sheep and hens 

 Was lying all about. 



"I didn't know a city chap 



Was so much of a fool. 

 1 didn't know a city dog 



Wa 



than a 



rule. 



"I didn't know as much about 



Some subjects as I do; 

 I've learned i he valley of a dog 

 And of a donkey, too. 



"Yes, you kin shoot across my lanu 



And sling your powder five— 

 Mutton is twenty cents a pound 



And terms Is C. O. D. 



"My wire and me air life-insured, 



And Accidental, too : 

 I've spiled a man with this yer gun. 



Not half as bij as you." 



The Grauger wears a ghastly smile. 



His eye isflxed and bright; 

 I do not like that smile's import. 



That eye's unholy light. 



1 yearn no move for manly sport, 



But rest in peace at home, 

 While he is sitting in, or on. 



The said aforesaid gloam. 



They say he once had friends and home, 

 They say he once was wise, 



They say he joined a sporting club- 

 Perhaps they're telling lies, J. J. Roche. 



—When does a windlass make sailors mad? When it 

 raises their rancour 



Fb) threat mui Strt 



$owi\ fhe J~lu <§a /»/**. 



AMONG THE GRAYLING. 



BY TKADDUXS IsORRlS. 



EVER since 1 he American grayling 1ms been known to 

 anglers, my friend Mr. Daniel Fitzhugh has urged 

 me to come out to Michigan and join him in a trip in pur- 

 suit of them. It was not until the last week of July just 

 past, however, I hat I could find time to break away from 

 the city of Brotheily Love and make a fair demonstration 

 against them on the Au Sable. By appointment, I break- 

 fasted wih Daniel, the aforesaid, in Bay City on the 291 h 

 alt. The plan agreed on b> correspondence was to drop 

 down the river some six or eight miles further than Mr. 

 Fitzhugh had explored it, and after having a surfeit of 

 sport to return to Grayling (formerly called Crawford), the 

 station where the railroad from Bay City crosses it. This 

 plan would have involved two days' hard pushing against 

 a strong, steady current. In the course of our conversa- 

 tion, Daniel remarked that at some, future time, if he could 

 find a congenial brother of the angle to accompany him, 

 he intended to take a trip on the Au Sable that would re- 

 quire no such labor in returning. That he would put his 

 boat in at Grayling and run the river as far down as 

 Thompson's, which is seventy-live miles by land, and much 

 more than double that distance bythe stream. At Thomp- 

 son's he would get teams and haul his boats overland 

 twenty-five miles to Tawas City, on Saginaw Bay, where 

 a steamer for Bay City touches every day. 



Think, my dear Mr. Editor, how provocative ihis was to 

 one who had not camped out or slept on spruce boughs for 

 rive longyears. Would you, then and there, have done other- 

 wise than earnestly advocate such a trip imlanter in place 

 of that originally proposed? Daniel seconded the amend- 

 ment as soon as I moved it, and we were unanimous. 



After our matutinal meal we walked out, and on the 

 street met Mr. Leonard, generally known as "Len" Jewel- 

 not "Lem," as my ancient friend Seth Green hatb it, Len 

 is a brawny, broad shouldered youlji of sixty, six feet and 

 an inch "in his stockings," and, as I found on our trip, a 

 man of not over many words, but -still cheerful and com- 

 municative, with a low down, pleasant laugh, full of ex- 

 pedients when one's flies form nti attachment to the tops of 

 the many cedars jutting out at a low angle from the banks 

 of (lie river, the best cook I ever met with in camp, and, 

 as Seth truly says, "the boat goes where he wills it." Dan 

 had assigned Len to me as pusher. He chimed in with our 

 change of plan immediately^ and proposed that we should 

 go see John Sharp, who was to push Dan's boat. We found 

 Johnny at his fish house, busily engaged in putting up an 

 order for white fish, cramming in ice and nailing up boxes, 

 destined for the interior, and yet he had time to remove 

 the ice in a large chest and display at full length a lake 

 trout of nearly four feet. After a while he laid down his 

 hammer and saw, and said he was ready to talk on busi- 

 ness. He jumped at our new plan for the trip. Johnny is 

 a wiry young fellow of sixty-five. He and Len hunt, 

 shoot, and fish with Dan and the rest of the Fitzhughs, and 

 the ducks and deer they have laid low may be calied "le- 

 gion," besides a few "bar" and au occasional wolf or pan- 

 ther. 



At half past two in the afternoon we were en route- for 

 Grayling, distant about ninety miles. This part of Michi- 

 gan is an elevated, sandy plaiu, slightly rolling, and, except 

 in marshy places, with a very thin soil, or no soil at all, on 

 loose, coarse, white sand. The new railroad, running al- 

 most due north, was projected by the lumbermen, and 

 within a year or two will cross some fine trout streams 

 flowing northwest, north, and northeast. There are no 

 trout in the grayling streams, as far as is knowu, except in 

 Boardman's Creek. On our way we crossed the bead of 

 the south branch of the Au Sable, which rises in a shallow 

 lake, is fed by swampy water, and consequently rather 



warm. It lias no grayling until within a few miles of its 

 junction with the main stream, fifteen miles down from 

 Grayling by land, and about thirty-live by water. Gray- 

 ling is not far from the source of, and on, the main branch. 

 The north brunch comes in about twelve miles below the 

 south branch, and of course from an opposite direction. 

 It is well stocked with grayling, and about half the vol- 

 ume of the main stream. A dam for flooding the river to 

 run logs, however, causes a discoloration of the water un- 

 favorable to fly fishing, and after its waters unite with the 

 main stream this provoking influence is still observed. 

 Four miles west of Grayling is Portage Lake— abundantly 

 stocked with large pickerel and black bass— one of the 

 sources of the Manistee, and approachable by a good wagon 

 road. It is the intention of Mr. Fitzhugh at some time to 

 have his boat hauled to Portage Lake from Grayling, to 

 descend the outlet into the Manistee, and explore'it as fat- 

 down as the crossing of the Indiana and Grand Rapids 

 Railroa/I, returning thence with his boat by rail to Bay 

 City. Mr. F. says that he has been told that grayling- 

 abound in the Manistee even more than in the Au Sable, 

 but that the Hersey, where he first killed them, has been 

 pretty well fished out. And yet we see by Mr. Ainsworlh's 

 letter to the Rochester Democrat that he killed nearly five 

 hundred, during a sojourn of two weeks at Reed City, on 

 that stream early in June. They were small, however, 

 compared with our average catch in the Au Sable. 



All the grayling streams, whether flowing east, west, or 

 north, rise in the same elevated region of almost level, 

 sandy country. The ascent from the lake shores from 

 either quarter is so gradual as not to be perceptible to a 

 traveller. Grayling is seven hundred feet higher than Bay 

 City, and this inclination to the lake shore gives an aver- 

 age current of about three miles an hour to the Au Sable. 

 The shores, especially near their sources, are but slightly 

 elevated above the surface of the streams, which, of course, 

 have in most places the appearance of being bank-full. 

 Lower down there are now and then, at long distances 

 apart, high sand bluffs abutting against the rivers. There 

 is little or no water shed, and the rams falling on the sundy 

 plains form small underground rivulets, which find their 

 way to the rivers. The streams being replenished in this 

 way with spring water, are always of a low temperature in 

 summer, do not. freeze over in winter, and are of very equa- 

 ble flow, not varying more than a foot in depth between 

 high and low water even in the spring of the year. 



We reached Grayling a little before sunset, and stayed 

 all night at a new hotel, the only dwelling at the station, 

 built mainly to accommodate the employees of the rail- 

 road. There came in the car with us a pleasure parly, 

 consisting of Mr. Mershon, his wife and children, and some 

 lady friends of Bay City, to camp on the river a few days, 

 tisb, shoot pigeons, and have a good time. We passed 

 their camp next day iu descending the si ream, and Dan 

 hailed the ladles and held some conversation with them in 

 the Chippewa language, which, I suspect, both he and 

 they improvised for the moment. They were jolly, al- 

 though it was raining. The Au Sable "at the station is 

 small, with low and apparently swampy banks, much ob- 

 structed with alders and fallen cedars, and affoiditig but 

 small opportunity for a fly cast. An affluent of half its 

 volume conies iu a few miles below, after which there is 

 smple room to swing one's line. 



On inspecting Mr. Fitzhugh's boats, and questioning ray 

 friend Len, I found that -they were eighteen feet long, the 

 beam (a little forward of midship) three feet, sharp at bolh 

 ends, fiat bottomed, two feet six inches on the floor in the 

 widest part, with a flare of three inches, making them, as 

 just stated, three feet wide on top. There is a compart- 

 ment, water tight from the other portions, extending from 

 abeam two feet six inches forward, and the whole breadth 

 of the boat, This is the "well," to keep the fish alive. It 

 has three one inch holes in the bottom, and two on each 

 side, to admit the water and keep up the circulation, the 

 water being six or seven inches deep when the luggage and 

 men are aboard, aud will keep alive seventy or eighty fish, 



