foodhnd, Wkwn mtd %mim. 



SHELTER PLANTING. 



IN recalling memories of woodland camps that have been 

 tenanted through fair weather and foul, the sheltering 

 effect of the unbroken forest always comes among the most 

 gratefully remembered of all the camp associations; as hav- 

 ing disarmed the blast of its fiercest power, and taken 

 from sleet and storm their keenest sting, and we are in- 

 clined to feel that when the pioneers came, axe in hand, to 

 establish lawns in the new country, that in the great arms 

 of the old trees they found a source of protection and shel- 

 ter that their later "betterments" have hardly compensated 

 for. Yet very few saw it so. The leaves hid the sunshine, 

 the roots were so many obstacles to the plow, and down 

 they came. The bark went to the tanneries, a little of the 

 timber was used, while the main part was burned in heaps 

 and the ashes sold. Of course it was necessary to clear 

 land, but the woodman, proud of his skill with the axe, saw 

 only an enemy to agriculture in the forest, and nothing but 

 complete extermination satisfied him, and with untiring 

 energy the work was pushed, until from corner to corner of 

 many a farm every branch was trimmed, no shade remain- 

 ing for man or beast, no shelter for the friendly birds, nor 

 cover for any covey of game. All clear, bleak, storm-swept 

 and bald; with the springs dried up, the meadows brown 

 and baked, the wheat smothered under drifts or frozen out 

 on wind swept knolls. Many and many such a farm now 

 lies bare and dreary under winter's cold and August heat, 

 and the buildings stand on some hill side with no tree, shrub 

 or friendly vine to clothe their nakedness. If a tree has 

 been planted in a moment of inspiration aroused by some of 

 the excellent rural papers, it has been used as a hitching 

 frost, a hen roost, or a scratching stick for lean-ribbed 

 cattle, and brier-tangled horses, and it assumes a dis- 

 couraged form, bent and hopeless, showing as little grace 

 or adornment as does the farmer's wife, who is expected to 

 get early breakfast, work all day, and do the mending in 

 the evening while the lord of the sile takes a preliminary 

 snore before the fire. 



Heaven may temper the wind to the shorn lamb, but not 

 to the shorn land, 



The storm spirit revels over such a scene; it is justsuch a 

 barren as with windfall and flame he makes in his wildest 

 moods in the broad forest, and roaring and wailing at win- 

 dow and door, he tells of discomfort and disaster, until the 

 farmer often comes out from a sleepless night to gather his 

 scattered rails, nail up his broken fences, or long disabled 

 gates and doors, and feed the unsheltered animals that 

 waste their nourishment in resisting exposure. 



Graceless indeed are such homes, and yet they are all 

 about, lived in from youth to age by men who exult in 

 • claims to represent the civilization of the century, and they 

 are satisfied with an outlook that would have driven away 

 the very Indians whose rude tools are often turned up to 

 provoke comment and contempt. 



The glorious inheritance from the ages when benificent 

 nature was untrammled has been wasted, squandered, and 

 only the years that lay generations low will undo the ignor- 

 ant work, which is still going on, going on because coal is 

 coming in as cheap as wood, and the farmer says there is 

 no use in his acres of woodland. 



No use in their beauty! Talk not of beauty to him who 

 hates a tree for the land it covers; he would shave his eye- 

 brows and apply guano if the space would produce at the 

 rate of one ton of nice grass per acre, and let hens roost on 

 his nose if they would lay hard biled eggs in his mouth! 

 Talk not to him of the free jifta that cannot be replaced if 

 once wasted. He will no. xearn the value of a tail even if 

 he loses it, and until his sterile farm drives him west, out 

 on some forsaken prairie, where trees three feet high cost 

 fifty cents each from agents, with illustrations of how they 

 will look to his children in thirty years; he will not see 

 money or anything else in a tree. 



Pass such a man's home in winter, button up your coat 

 and drive fast, get home and take something to drive the 

 chill from mind and marrow ! Ha ^5 the home of any bird 

 or animal but man such a wealth of desolation? See the 

 drifts that defy the shovel, and note the sod swept bare 

 just by the corners. Hear the scream of the gale about the 

 close cut eaves, and the rattle of the sash' that clatter until it 

 were better were they all filled with old hats that would 

 keep quiet and veil the dreariness from the eye as well as 

 ear. See the snow creep and crawl on the surface of the 

 crust like a visible shiver, driven carelessly onward, and 

 don't see anything more over your wrappings until you 

 come to the home of one who loves a tree and cherishes it. 

 Willingly will your steed halt and be patient in the lee of 

 an evergreen grove. All about from til*, light undisturbed 

 snow, resting like a beautiful cover orei grain and grass, to 

 the sleek animals that are ignorant of exposure, is suggest- 

 in o- repose and shelter. The wind whispers a more gentle 

 tafe in the pine tops, and when snow flakes fall they drop 

 gracefully and coyly down, resting on branch and vine, till 

 each seem again clothed in a new and more beautiful 

 foilage. Winter and summer it is always a place to linger 

 when the forest is near, and thrice r ->rtunate is he who has 

 some woodland between him and th; cold north and west. 

 In summer it is a cool and shady retreat, a place for quiet 

 Sunday rambles, and one where he who runs may read 

 lessons of deeper teaching than may be hammered into the 

 pulpit of some unsheltered church. 



From it children bring bright red willow wands and 

 "pussies," the first harbingers of our tardy spring* From 



it when the damp thawing air bears all sound with double 

 richness, comes the warble of the blue bird and the whistle 

 of the robin, and as the season advances, the partridge will 

 drum to his mate, and myriad voices will cheer the busy 

 workers on the farm. 



Sheltered among ferns the spring will glisten all through 

 the long summer, and about it an unpaid gardener will bring 

 flowers of the rarest hue and perfume, and even in the short 

 days when the trees snap with frost, the squirrels will come 

 out and print their little tracks for the childrens' tracing, 

 and the downy woodpecker, the Canada jay, and chicade- 

 de-de, will give life and animation. And such a place for 

 trapping when there is little to keep the boys amused, is the 

 farm wood lot; how many trips will be made to it at dawn 

 to see what luck? "When indeed on the homestead farm 

 will more memories cluster to deepen the wish — " Would 

 I were a boy again," than about the forest with the spring? 

 The farms are not all bleak and bare, although too many 

 remain so. Many are in intelligent keeping, and not only is 

 the woodland drawn from with care for the young growth, 

 but groups of strong evergreens are planted to meet as out- 

 posts the most sweeping winds, and as they assume size a 

 look of homelike comfort settles all about, and no one looks 

 upon the cosey house free from a feeling that here the good 

 offices of the forest are known and gladly welcomed. 



The lessons are spreading, and speed the day when the 

 exposed farm dwellings will shrink from our gaze into the 

 shadow of protecting groves. To have these valuable trees 

 cattle must be kept from them; some land must 

 be given up; but the grove will give more 

 warmth standing in the path of the gale, than it would 

 burning in the stove; the blight of the May winds will pass 

 over the sheltered land, and the beautiful home will 

 rank in the market many dollars higher per acre than the 

 bare farm that cannot spare any land for brush and 

 timber. 



No more important question lies before us than the pre- 

 servation and extension of the woodland. It meets not 

 only the mind of the farmer, but is forcing itself upon the 

 manufacturer in the form of fearful floods and equally ex- 

 treme droughts; upon the commercial men in dry canals and 

 shrunken rivers; upon the railway king with regard to ties 

 and fencing, and upon us all with extreme changes in 

 climate that may render our fair State almost uninhabit- 

 able. 



Legislatures, selfish as they are, must face the question, 

 but in the mean time let us honor and encourage him who 

 plants a shelter, and brings back a little of what has fled 

 before ignorance and waste. L. W. L. 



fatal H§tetory[. 



— England imported last year the enormous amount of 

 £14,603,479 of lumber. From Russia she received timber 

 to the amount of £2,148,973, and from the United States, 

 fully one-fourth of the whole amount, representing timber 

 to the vast sum of £4,221,420. The timber used specially 

 in England for mining purposes, is alone an extensive busi- 

 ness ; this wood comes principally from Sweden, Russia and 



France. 



-*♦♦- 



A Disease-destroring Tree. — M. Gimbert, who has 

 been long engaged in collecting evidence concerning the 

 Australian tree Eucalyptus globulus, the growth of which 

 is surprisingly rapid, attaining besides gigantic dimensions, 

 has addressed an interesting communication to the Academy 

 of Sciences. This plant, it now appears, possesses an ex- 

 traordinary power of destroying miasmatic influence in 

 fever-stricken districts. It has the singular property of ab- 

 sorbing ten times its weight of water from the soil, and of 

 emitting antiseptic camphorous effluvia. When sown in 

 marshy ground it will dry it up in a very short time. The 

 English were the first to try it at the Cape, and within two 

 or three years they completely changed -the climatic condi- 

 tion of the unhealthy parts of the colony. A few years 

 later its plantation was undertaken on a large scale in var- 

 ious parts of Algeria. At Pardock, twenty miles from 

 Algeria, a farm situated on the banks of the Hamyze was 

 noted for its extremely pestilential air. In the spring of 

 1867, about 13,000 of the eucalyptus were planted there. In 

 July of the same year — the time when the fever season used 

 to set in— not a single case occurred; yet the trees were not 

 more than 9ft. high. Since then a complete immunity 

 from fever has been maintained. In the neighborhood of 

 Constantine the farm of Ben Machydlin was equally in bad 

 repute. It was covered with marshes both in winter and 

 summer. In five years the whole ground was dried up by 

 14,000 of these trees, and farmers and children had excel- 

 lent health. At the factory of the Gue de Constantine, in 

 three years a plantation of eucalyptus has transformed 

 twelve acres of marshy soil into a magnificent park, whence 

 fever has completely disappeared. In the island of Cuba 

 this and all other paludal diseases are fast disappearing 

 from all the unhealthy districts where this tree has been in- 

 troduced. A station house at one of the ends of a railway 

 viaduct in the Department of the Var was so pestilential 

 that the officials could not be kept there longer than a year. 

 Forty of these trees were planted, and it is now as healthy 

 as any other place on the line. We have no information as 

 to whether this beneficent tree will grow in other than hot 

 climates. We hope that experiments will be made to deter- 

 mine this point. — Medical Times and Gazette. 



— The skin of an animal, whether cow, calf, colt or 

 horse, that dies on the farm, is worth more at home than 

 at the tanner's. Cut it into narrow strips, and shave off 

 the hair with a sharp knife before the kitchen fire, or in 

 your workshop on stormy days and evening. You may 

 make them soft by rubbing. A rawhide halter strap an 

 inch wide will hold a horse better and last longer than an 

 inch rope. It is stronger than hoopiron and more durable, 

 and may be used to hoop dry casks and boxes, and for 

 hinges. Try it on a broken thill, or any wood work that has 

 been split. Put it on wet and nail fast. Thin skins make 

 the best to use it in its natural state. For other purposes it 

 may be dressed- 



TRAPPING A CUNNING FOX. 



♦ 

 Weston, Va. , December 13, 1373 

 Editor Forest and Stream : — 



Some time last summer I saw a copy of your paper 

 was greatly pleased with it, but being poor (an invalid l 

 dier of the Mexican war) I was unable to subscribe for It 

 I am a trapper, and as the season is over, and I am sh t 

 up with snow here in the mountains, I thought I would 

 try my '"prentice hand" on a sketch for your paper. 



Not many years since I was trapping foxes and other 

 game in Londonderry, a town in the Green Mountain Stat 

 and the following account of my experience with a cun' 

 ning fox may perhaps intesest some of the readers of F r 

 est and Stream. My style of trapping foxes at that time 

 was to set in water, preferring a warm cpen spring, niacin 

 the trap beneath the surface and near the shore. The he t 

 of springs will sometimes crust over near the shore in verv 

 cold weather, especially if there is no snow upon th 

 ground. It was on such an occasion I one morning discov. 

 ered that a large dog fox had got into one of my traps and 

 the iee prevented the jaws closing tight enough to'hold 

 him. I felt somewhat chagrined, as any sportsman will 

 readily believe, and came to the conclusion that the old 

 fellow would give me trouble; nor was I mistaken. He 

 soon commenced springing that trap, apparently by reach- 

 ing over and under and throwing it out upon the shore 

 and after a while would spring it by dropping pieces of 

 wood upon the trencher, and before the season ended I 

 found sticks standing upright between the jaws, showing 

 plainly that he knew how it was himself. On every occa- 

 sion he would regale himself with the bait, or at least drag 

 it out upon the shore. His visits were not very frequent 

 so that I had opportunities for getting other foxes. 



The next season reynard plagued me as usual, and still the 

 third season found him alive, as mischievous and cunning 

 as ever. Now, it must not be supposed that I was not alive 

 to the necessities of the occasion, for in fact I exercised all 

 my skill in trying to outwit him, and I enjoyed it, too. In 

 truth, there is nothing a trapper likes so well as meeting 

 with a cunning fox. There is an excitement about it that 

 lends an additional charm to the sport, for you are com- 

 pelled to draw on your every resource and originality, and 

 when you have triumphed, as in the end you must, you 

 feel a greater pride than in taking a dozen ordinarily. 



But to my story. Whenever he visited my trap he inva- 

 riably crossed my route, and as I well knew his track I 

 could tell in advance when -my trap was to be sprung. Of 

 the many ways I adopted to catch him it were needless to 

 state; suffice it to say that I used several traps at the same 

 time, and he invariably sprung them all. But one day, as 

 I stood gazing at his work, a plan occurred to my mind as 

 if by inspiration. I set one trap, and at the next visit I had 

 my game. When he saw me approaching he commenced 

 to bark and jump furiously towards me. It seemed to me 

 he felt enraged that I had outwitted him, and although I 

 felt elated, still I could not but regret his fate, for he seemed 

 so human in his intelligence. He had gnawed the trap till 

 his jaw was worn through in front. That he was a patri- 

 arch among foxes was evident. Not a tooth had he left. 

 His weight was fourteen pounds, and he measured four 



feet six inches from tip to tip. C. L. Whitman. 

 ^ t » 



x — The Rocky Mountain Hare.— The Bocky Mountain 

 hare is a rare species in Colorado. I saw but four during 

 four months collecting in the Rocky Mountains. I do not 

 know of any live specimens in a state of domestication. In 

 the winter they descend the mountains and feed in the quak- 

 ing aspen groves on the side hills in the valleys. During 

 the summer months, they are found feeding on the out- 

 skirts of thick heavy timber, generally on the high- 

 est mountains. They breed in June, and do not burrow; 

 and are very shy animals. Perhaps C. W. Berry, of 

 Granite Lake county, Colorado, can trap one alive. They 

 are known to him as the Mountain Jack Rabbit or Hare. 

 Yours, truly, J. H. Batty. 



Bath, King's Co., N. Y. 



^^ 



DO SNAKES HISS? 



Baltimore, Dec. 17, 1878. 

 Editor Forest and Stream: — 



In reply to the question, "do snakes hiss?" I can assure 

 your correspondent they do. In September, 1864, I twice 

 heard it, and each time had my attention directed to the 

 snake by the sound, and then saw and heard him repeat it. 

 The snake was the Heterodan Platirhinos, vulgo, hog nosed, 

 snake, and in the country where I saw it, Baltimore Co., 

 Md., viper. Dr. J. E. Halbrook, in his Herptology, 4tli vol., 

 sixty-ninth page, says of this species, that when irritated it 

 coils itself as the rattlesnake does, erects its head, which it 

 waves to and fro, and hisses. I think I have heard other 

 species hiss, but cannot remember time and place. 



Yours, truly, G. H. Moran. 

 -^*^- 



— Connected with the new citadel at Strasburg is a pigeon 

 house, with accommodations of the most approved descrip- 

 tion for 500 carrier pigeons, to be ready in event of war. 

 Are we in England, asks Broad Arrow, to rest so well satis- 

 fied with the omnipotence and omnipresence of telegraph 

 wires as to neglect entirely the homing pigeon? In Ger- 

 many, the War Department is wise enough to organize a 

 pigeon loft in its important garrisons, but in England it is 

 evidently to be left to private enterprise to encourage 

 pigeon flying in Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Chatham. 

 Some time since we endeavored to provide the means 01 



