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1' JILL U 1 -WW^^HlHffll" 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



DK VOTED TO FUSLD AND AQUATIC SrOHTS, PRACTICAL NATURAL lilSTORV, 



Fbqc'ultbkb, rait Protection of Game, Pkkhsrvation op Forests, 



AND TDB INCULCATION IN jMBN AND WOMBN OF A H>liLTHV INTEREST 



.."IN L>UT-DoOB Keoheatioh and Stody: 



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FARMERS AND MARKET MEN— THE 

 SPORTSMAN'S BUGBEARS. 



JT is a noteworthy fact that ihe market men of Boston have 

 such power in the lobby of the State Legislature that it 

 has been impossible to secure consideration of any bill to pro- 

 tect game within the limits of the State, which does not em- 

 body provisions -which in effect nullify legislation. The 

 market men have been induced to consent to an absolutely 

 close season, provided the sale of birds killed outside of the 

 State were permitted throughout the first four months of the 

 year, namely, January, February, March and April ! And 

 all that the game clubs and the advocates of protective meas- 

 ures have been able to do is to assent, upon the plea of ex- 

 pediency, claiming that it is better to offer a premium on 

 law-breaking in neighboring States, rather than have no law 

 ■within their own borders. They urge that half a loaf for 

 themselves is better than no bread. 



We doubt if events prove that the}' have gained a point. 

 We are opposed to all temporizing with the enemy. Let us 

 ask first, how these market men could obtain the great bulk 

 Of the birds which they offer for sale if they did not obtain 

 them from the farmers and the poachers upon farm lands. 

 Next ; what inducements could the farmers have to send their 

 birds to market in forbidden seasons for the mere pittance of 

 gain which they derive, provided a system of preservation in 

 which they were made chief factors, brought them greater 

 emoluments at lawful times ? "Where are quail chiefly ob- 

 tained ? On farm lands. Where are woodcock, grouse and 

 prairie fowl obtained for the most part ? Also on farm lands. 

 When gentlemen sportsmen desire to shcot, what do they do 

 first ? They con over their list of farming friends and write 

 to them for permission to come. And yet, the farmers upon 

 whose lands the game principally breeds and feeds are seldom 

 consulted as to preservative acts, or invited to deliberate in 

 proceedings of sportsmen, or to join clubs. Are the farmers 

 all German market gardeners, or poor white natives, whose 

 Bprouts, cabbages and berry vines are to be tramped over and 

 kicked up with impunity by rough-shod gunners without so 

 much as asking, " by your leave ?" By no means. A large 

 proportion of the readers of Fobhst and Stbeam are gentle- 

 men faimerB who constitute a power to preserve game if their 

 services are enlisted. This is not the class of men who send 



trapped birds to market in and out of season. Such men can 

 exert an influence and work out conservative results, which 

 mere sportsmen never can. The sportsmen have now tried 

 their hand at game protection for fully twenty years ; so far 

 they have accomplished very little. The prolonged discussion 

 of sumptuary measures and the study of the habits of game 

 creatures, has indeed had its wholesome effect in awakening 

 the whole country to the necessity of protecting and preserv- 

 ing game, and in the organization of clubB favoring protective 

 measures ; but it has done little else. Most of the sportsmen 

 are not farmers ; but very many farmers are sportsmen. Let 

 them be invited to the deliberations of sportsmen, that their 

 relations to each other may become better understood, and 

 their interests made harmonious. 



Hitherto all the laws seem to have been drafted in the in- 

 terests of sportsmen x>nly. The farmers have been too much 

 ignored. Their lands are looked upon as open domain for 

 every man who carries a gun and works a dog. Farmers who 

 buy, feed, shelter and winter birds are iorbidden, forsooth, to 

 trap for their own consumption or pecuniary profit in order to 

 preserve them for the gunners. They, the owners of birds 

 and lands, are required to waive their property rights in favor 

 of irresponsible sportsmen whose interests are alien, and whose 

 only title is that which inheres in the birds as feres natures. 



Is it wonderful that farmers, loth to loso all the proceeds 

 and profits of their investments, should hasten to anticipate 

 the ccming of unconscionable sportsmen who, regardless of 

 close seasons, take the field weeks before the law is off ? or 

 that indigent toilers who can scarcely grub a livelihood from 

 the soil, should seek some small remuneration by gleaning 

 from the stubble and copse the poor scrags which are left 

 after the sportsman has hung up his gun, trapping them when- 

 ever they can ? Quel tort ? Who is the most blameworthy, 

 the derelict sportsman who contributes nothing, or the dere- 

 lict farmer who has contributed all? 



But as to the wholesale destruction of game, we think that 

 the great burden of accusation should not be laid at the doors 

 of the farmers and farmers' sons. The greater mischief is 

 done by that class of poachers who scrape the bottom boards 

 of preserves for everything bearing the semblance of game. 

 There are conscientious pot-hunters and market gunners, as 

 much inclined to respect close seasons as honorable sports- 

 men, whom we do not include in the category of lawless 

 poachers, although we deplore the havoc which follows their 

 tracks. But poachers per se are highway robbers and despoil- 

 ers of land and water preserves ; desperadoes who are ready, 

 when caught or confronted, to attempt escape from arrest 

 by shooting the land owners. They are dog poisoners, barn 

 burners, robbers of hen roosts and meat houses, yet oft times 

 traveling in the guise of sportsmen, with dog and gun, and 

 the most approved accoutrements. While they beat the fields 

 and swamps they secretly set their traps by scores in every 

 patch and runway. They are ready to contract with agents 

 and collectors to furnish so many head of game at so much 

 per dozen, or barrel ! The collectors ship them to some out- 

 lying railway station, and the expressmen and railroad 

 officials knowingly, or unwittingly, become pariiceps criminis 

 by transporting the game to market— the ultima thule where 

 the golden lure is held out at the despicable price of 65 cent 

 per dozen ! There are strings and strings of them now in the 

 city markets rotting for lack of purchasers 1 Shame upon 

 men who call themselves honorable venders ! This is the 

 class with whom the Massachusetts game protectors have been 

 obliged to negotiate and temporize in order to secure any pro- 

 tective law at all, by conceding the extraordinary months of 

 January, February, March and April, as months in which 

 game killed out of the State may be sold. Heaven help the 

 poor ! Cannot these mercenary market men make far larger 

 profits from their sales of spring lamb and fish, than they can 

 skin from the meagre margins which accrue from the sale of 

 unseasonable, unhealthy, and illegitimate game ? Is not the 

 small risk of loss in selling legitimate meat more engaging 

 than the doubtful traffic in sour and skinny birds which have 

 been starved by deep snows, heated by close packing, marred 

 and mashed by long transportation, and kept for weeks in ico 

 chests whose chill is like the damp of vaults where dead men 

 are buried, and whose slimy deposits are just about as repul- 

 sive to the eye and palate ? 



Now, to extinguish the poachers, and squelch the market 

 men :— how can it be accomplished ? Surely there is nothing 

 easier than to make the carrying of a gun and sportsman's ac- 

 coutrements in close seasons prima facie evidence of an in- 

 tent to violate the law. Intent should be equivalent to viola- 

 tion, and either should make the offender liable to arrest and 

 severe punishment. 



But how shall we be able to reach these offenders When the 

 laws are so inconsistent that they permit men to carry a gun 

 and dog to shoot woodcock, and at the same time prohibit 

 them from carrying a gun and accoutrements to shoot ruffed 

 grouse and quail ? Evidently there is no alternative except to 

 make the seasons uniform on all kinds of game, so that there 

 can be no excuse or possible pretext for a man being in the 

 field prior to or after a designated date. Should such a pro- 

 vision seem to bear hard upon some localities or sections, tell 

 us whether it be better that a few sportsmen should suffer, or 

 that the game should be scoured out of the whole .country ? 

 There can be no uniformity in game laws without certain 

 compromises on latitudes, localities, and some varieties of 

 game. But sportsmen will be required to make only trifling 

 sacrifices. If woodcock be debarred in July, do they not 

 have ruffed grouse, quail, deer, and wild fowl in the fall f 

 Is it not better that the tew should go without woodcock 



than that eventually there shall be no grouse, quail, and deer 

 for anybody? And if by reason of a fixed date (Eay Ssptem- 

 ber 1st) birds should not be full grown in a northern locality, 

 is it not better that a few immature birds shall die in that sec- 

 tion, than that the whole fraternity of sportsmen be debwred 

 from sport in southern localities where the birds are full- 

 grown ? Again, if by reason of expediency the close season 

 is made to begin January 1st, is it not better to curtail the 

 sport of men in the southern tier of Slates, rather than that 

 birds should perish in the deep snows of northern latitudes, 

 by gim and snare ? "What we curtail at one end, we give and 

 allow at the other, so that we grant a fair and full average 

 to all— and spare the birds. Four months' shooting should 

 suffice for any reasonable man. What wo aim at iB to make 

 the season uniform on all kinds of game alike, beginning at 

 Sept. 1st and closing Dec. 3lBt, so that any man found 

 accoutred as a sportsman in prohibited seasons, in any part 

 of the country, may be arrested and punished. Then, if no 

 game is shot, the occupation of the market men, as well as 

 their pecuniary incentive, is gone. Following will come the 

 game" millennium, when the labors of twenty years will have 

 accomplished their purpose. 



Under such a regime no possible objection can be raised 

 against trapping. Trapping will be done in open season only, 

 just as shooting will be dene. The same penalties for 

 trapping will obtain as for shooting, and traps found set^on 

 premises will be prima fade evidence of guilt. 



And why not trap in season ? Are not the birds more 

 comely to look at, and more desirable for the table? Will 

 trapping prove more destructive to the birds ? Will it exter- 

 minate them ? Will the silent operations of the snare and net 

 tend more to drive away the birds and make them wild than 

 the bang of the gun from day to day, which picks up a 

 brace now, and two brace to-morrow, continuously, until the 

 coveys are bagged entire, or the remnant run off to other 

 covers? Cannot the farmer be trusted to trap judiciously? 

 He has been to no small trouble and expense to plant and 

 winter the birds : will not his common sense and pecuniary 

 interest induce^him to leave enough for seed for the coming 

 year ? He does so with bis corn, potatoes and wheat. Is it 

 for the sportsman to dictate that the farmer shall not gather 

 where he hath sown ? Shall the farmer cast in the seed lor 

 the sportsman to reap ? 



The time has come to discuss these questions seriously. 

 The rights of farmers have not hitherto been sufficiently taken 

 into account. Their active intelligent co-operation should 

 now be invited and secured. What we need more than all is 

 Farmers' Protective Game CluU ; not in antagonism to sports- 

 men's clubs, but in harmony with them ; and operating upon 

 Ihe plan which we have now outlined, and which is Ihe only 

 feasible plan to meet all the requirements of the case ; to 

 foster mutual interests (] and to prevent abuses. 



WALTONIANA, 



iZAAK WALTON was exceptionally blessed in his lifetime 

 with the great blessing of many and rare friends. "All 

 who knew him loved him ; and if any did not ove him, it was 

 because they did not know him," exclaims his biographer, and 

 now, two centuries after his death, we may repeat the saying 

 with equal truth of the generations after generations who, in 

 his books, have known and loved the gentle philosopher of 

 the "angling days." For who that has read his books baa 

 not been drawn to the writer by the homely, honest good 

 sense and kindly wisdom which fill thier pages. Few there are, 

 too, we suspect, who have not been conscious of something of 

 a feeling of regret that Jzaak Walton has not left us more. In- 

 fluenced by some such motives as these, he tells us, Mr. 

 Richard Heme Shepherd has collected and published, under 

 the title of " Waltoniana," a number of Walton's fugitive 

 pieces in prose and verse, the dates of whose composition 

 cover a period of some fifty years. While these fragments 

 and'stray bits are not of a nature to add much, if anything, to 

 the literary reputation of their author, they will nevertheless 

 be received by not a few of his friends with the same spirit 

 that induced the collection. Nor will their publication be al- 

 together fruitless, if it shall do nothing more than simply 

 serve to show us how diligently and conscientiously Walton 

 labored with his pen. Among these curious liteiary treasures, 

 for example, is the original elraft of the " Elegy on Donne," 

 which is believed to be the earliest literary work of Walton's 

 that has been preserved to us. It is the same poem which, 

 greatly re-modeled, corrected, amended, and in short almost 

 re-written in the author's old age, was finally inserted in the 

 collection of the " LiveF." All this goes to show that Walton 

 had the gift of patient, ^ins-taking work, agood, old-fashioned 

 way of writing, now, unhappily, somewhat out of date, but 

 without which, we may add, few things last so long as have 

 the " Angler" and the "Lives." 



" Izaak Walton's Complete Angler," the quaint production 

 of a quaint mind, is unlike anything else in the English lan- 

 guage; and it grows every year more charming, as its fancies, 

 morals and queerly turned sayings assume more and more the 

 quiddities and oddities of old age. No man has ever really 

 gone fishing— let us rather say "angling"— who has not 

 started cut. with rod and line from TottiDgharn High Cross for 

 a day's ramble with the master. And [one may make the ex 

 cursion at any time, whether it is a good day for fishing or 

 not Yet as there are times and moods for oil books, give us 

 the |"Complete Angler" on a day iu June, while we lie 

 underneath the shade, the brook purling by, the perfumes rf 



