m 



FOREST ANJD STREAM, 



Mr. Mnir expresses sOuie contrition at having, when a boy, 

 ' (Mfce, at a Bltiglesboti Strung tyro sparrows on his lilUe ar- 

 row. En! ti ,<■,,://,, ilu, is. Such a foal 

 would not grieve the heart, of ioung America ; aud I do 

 not know "Whether it may he Ihfl outcropping: of that ''pri- 

 mordial savagery '' of human nature in general, hut certain 



it is I never present DOW and arrow to the engaging small boy 

 but thftthe proceedeth Straightway to try his skill on some 

 living object—be it our, eat, pig or chicken. But it has 

 afforded iiie food for deep relieetion— the fact that he will 

 not shoot at a dog 1 



As to the killing of lawful game with the bow I am in en- 

 tire sympathy with Mr. Maurice Thompson, and look back 

 with pensive regret at the time wasted iu knocking over duck 

 and plover, not. to mention grouse, Unities, royal-pheasants, 

 etc. , with so prosaic and unclassical an implement as a douhlc- 

 barreled breach-loauiug gun ! In short, 1 oftentimes feel the 

 Indian cropping out iu me, and am strangely tempted to seize 

 my half dozen hows, with a few hundred arrows, and cut out 

 for the wild wood. But again, may not my fondness for the 

 classic weapon be assignable, as in many other cases, simply 

 to a " returning heredity" and deducible from our Gorman 

 and meditcral English ancestry? 



1 have performed no feats with the long bow; have not, 

 like Acestes, "shot my arrows in the sun," nor have we any 

 game hereabout. But I have flighted my arrows across the 

 Potomac River at a certain point where it is not as wide as at 

 some other points. 



We have " whipped the Britishers" at baseball, yachting, 

 Towing and rifle shooting, but they still bear the palm at 

 archery. Will not some of our jeuncsse dores who may be ad- 

 dieting themselves to the long bow enter the lists and contend 

 lor the prizes to be shot for on English soil the coming sea- 

 son ? And, ladies, your fair English cousins have greatly the 

 advantage of you in this matter of archery ; for, depend upon 

 it, nothing so "adds to beauty's glow " as active out-of-doors 

 exercise, and there is no exercise so suitable to your sex and 

 costume as " the twanging of the yew." 



I find in the Congressional Library a little volume entitled 

 ''The Archer's Manual as Practiced by the United Bowmen 

 of Philadelphia." The date of its publication is 1830— half a 

 century ago. The only other American book on the subject 

 isMr. Maurice Thompson's charming "Witchery of Archery." 

 But there is a copious English literature, and the bibliography 

 of archery at large will he found in the London "Notes and 

 Queries " of last year. 



I have procured excellent archeTy implements from the 

 several dealers in New York, and can particularly recommend 

 the well known old importing house of G. P. A. Hinrichs, 

 29 to S3 Park Place. His French and Belgian back-bows are 

 uuequaled. The finest how I have ever seen is of Spanish 

 yew, made by Thomas Aldred, 1S6 Oxford street, London. 



Although not fully agreeing with old Statius, wherein he 

 says Ptidor est nemre sagittas, yet I cheerfully contribute 

 what may be in my power toward the encouragement of the 

 manly, graceful, healthful, classic exercise of archery. 



Washington, D. C, Mai/, 1879. 



F,ir Forest and Stream and Rod and Gun. 

 ALCOHOL IN CAMP. 



By Tbekon Q. Stmxso. 



IT is not my intention to deliver a temperance lecture 

 through these columns. Inclination does not prompt, nor 

 does the occasion demand it ; and while my convictions are 

 most decided that total abstinence is one of the surest paths 

 to health and prosperity, it is not my purpose at present to 

 enforce these views by appeal or argument. But the ques- 

 tion which I desire to ask and briefly consider is as to the 

 utility of alcoholic beverages in camp as a part of the sports- 

 man's outfit. 



Considerable personal experience and observation, sup- 

 plemented by not a little research into the recorded experi- 

 ence of others, convinces me that the use of alcoholic stimu- 

 lants in camp, or during the day's sport with rod or gun, 

 serves no good purpose, but works a positive injury. It can- 

 not be denied that the use of spirituous liquors in camp is 

 extremely common, and that the impression among sporting 

 men is very general that they are a panacea for all the ills 

 that the sporting man in camp is heir to. And, while I do 

 not expect that anything I may say will tend to alter the hab- 

 its Of confirmed drinkers, who, in camp or out of it, find the 

 use of alcoholic beverages a necessity, it is because their use 

 is so common, and the impression that they are beneficial so 

 general, that 1 desire to address that other audience, composed 

 of the young disciples of Nirnrod and good old Izaak Wal- 

 ton, who have just begun to handle the rifle and shotgun and 

 cast the fly, and who will be the instructors of the sportsmen 

 of the future. Nor do 1 intend to enforce my views by an 

 explanation of the action of alcohol on the system as tending 

 to a destruction of the tissues and enfeebling muscular force. 

 That alcoholic stimulant acts upon the fatigued sportsman 

 precisely as the whip on a tired horse— spurring him into ac- 

 tivity only to leave him more tired than before — is too well 

 known to admit of discussion. And it is also capable of 

 demonstration that placing the total abstainer, refreshed by 

 a draught of warm tea, alongside of the man who relieB on 

 his whFsky or rum to produce warmth, with the thermometer 

 below zero, with no cover but a blanket, and the blazing tire 

 at their feet, which will be a few smouldering embers before 

 morning, the chances will be very decided that, when morn- 

 ing arrives, the former will wake quite comfortable and 

 active, while the latter, if not frozen to death, will wake 

 numb and cold, and in no sense fitted for the duties of the 

 day. 



The larger range of my personal experience and observa- 

 tion has been confined to a part of Canada known as the Mus- 

 koka District, and the outlying country beyond, to which no 

 name has yet been given, because it is still unsurveyed and 

 unclaimed, except by the Government of the Dominion. 

 The guides in that locality are, for the most part, lumbermen 

 or trappers in winter and the spring, who, inhabiting rude 

 log shanties, have, in other portions of the year, reclaimed a 

 few acres, which by careful tilliDg yields, with their other 

 earnings, a scanty subsistance. The rigor of the climate 

 in winter, and the terrible privations and hardships which 

 these hardy pioneers undergo, no one can imagine who has 

 n H personally experienced them. With the thermometer of- 

 ten indicating in winter forty degrees below zero, sleeping 

 frequently duiins the trapping season without even the shel. 



lerof a tent, with only a blanket as a Onvcring, it would 

 seem that if there were any virtue in alcohol, either as a pre- 

 ventive agaiiisi told or as an aid t:> exertion, these were the 

 ni'en who w.ould have discovered it. mil any one who has 

 Seen them en hot summer days shoulder the i'mmeni a burfJ ii 

 which they cheerfully carry-over the Ion .-_■■ , igi 

 witnessed the vigorous stroke d£ (he paddle wiih which they 

 drive the canoe over the waters, wool. I unhesitatingly say 

 that if alcohol made in.'-; 1 , ieas oppressive Di r Bdi titl Dne 

 less impervious to the sun's rays, or lightened toil, or sweet- 

 ened rest, these men, keen of eye, quick in 

 thought, vigorous in action, would have discovered 

 it. On the contrary, travel where you will in 

 that country, and ask these men if they would 

 take it as a gift, and they would tell you that it would serve 

 them no good purpose and prove as useless as a poison. And 

 yet I venture to say that many of them never heard a temper- 

 ance lecture ! Nor is it characteristic of these men alone that 

 alcohol is discarded, nor is it confined to this locality. In ihe 

 Adirondacks and iu the Maine woods wherever you find men 

 who are compelled to undergo great privations and sutler ex- 

 posure to inclement weather you will find the same adherence 

 to total abstinence principles, and if you visit the loreat wilds 

 this Bummer or autumn, put the question to your guide and 

 to other guides you may meet, and if they are the kind of 

 men who make a camping experience a delight on which 

 memory loves to linger when winter has come with its wild 

 winds whiBtling as you sit by your open fire dreaming of the 

 glorious days of autumn, making you long for their return, 

 you will receive the reply that they are not aided by alcohol. 



If there were no other argument at all, the unanimous ver- 

 dict of honest and hardy backwoodsmen, guides and trappers, 

 those whose experience is worth something, and who know 

 whereof they speak, would of itself be sufficient to convince 

 any one that there must be no substantial good in alcoholic 

 stimulant as a part of the camp supplies. But after.all, this 

 is hearsay evidence, and how can I say that the city-bred 

 sportsman, a kind of exotic from the hot-house of the city, 

 does not need alcoholic stimulant to preserve vitali'y and lend 

 strength. If personal experience goes for anything, my own 

 lias been such that for several years I have not "taken and 

 never shall again take any alcoholic beverage into camp. I 

 am willing to compare experiences in heat, cold, fatigue, in- 

 clement weather and rough and toilsome journeys, with any 

 other lover of gun and rod whose experiences are confined to 

 a month annually, and I have never found a single instance in 

 which I felt the least want of any alcoholic stimulant, or in 

 which it would have been desirable. Nor does the conclusion 

 thai alcoholic beverages, so far from meeting the require- 

 ments of camp, are positively injurious, rest alone on mere 

 oral testimony or personal experience, which, after all, may 

 prove exceptional cases, but the recorded testimony of high 

 medical authority, and the experience of distinguished soldiers 

 and travellers, who have led large bodies of men through the 

 most trying climates and terrible privations, is entirely un- 

 contradicted as to the positive disadvantages of alcohol in 

 camp, and the positive advantages of its absence. 



In " Parker on Hygiene " (2d edition, p. 2403, the author 

 in speaking of the use of alcoholic stimulants to ward off 

 cold says: "There is a singular unaminity on this point. 

 All observers condemn the use of spirits as a preventive 

 against cold." He refers in support of this statement to the 

 Arctic travellers, Sir John Bichardson, Mr. Goodsir m Sir 

 John Franklin's first voyage, Br. King, Captain Kennedy (in 

 the last search for franklin when the whole crew were teeto- 

 tallers), Br. Kane, Dr. Hayes, surgeon of the Kane expedi- 

 tion, who says he will not only not use spirits, but will take 

 no man accustomed to use them. The author also refers to 

 the well known fact that the Hudson Bay Company excluded 

 spirituous liquors entirely from their rations. As to their 

 use in tropical climates the author says : "With regard to ser- 

 vice and exercise in the tropics we have the strong testimony 

 of Kanald Martin that warm tea is the best beverage, and this 

 will be corroborated, I believe, by every one who has made 

 long marches or hunting excursions in India, and has care- 

 fully observed what kind of diet best suited him." 



When wet and cold the use of spirits might be supposed to 

 be beneficial, hut no testimony can be more convincing on 

 this point than that of Inspector General Sir John Hall, K. G. 

 B., who, in his " Medical History of the War in the Crimea " 

 ("Vol. 1, p. 504), says! "My own opinion is, that neither 

 spirits, wine, nor malt liquor is necessary for health. The 

 healthiest army I ever served with had not a single drop of 

 any of them. And although it was exposed to all the 

 hardships of Kaffir warfare at the Gape of Good Hope, 

 in wet and inclement weather, without tents or shelter 

 of any kind, the sick-list seldom exceeded one percent.; 

 and this continued, not only Unoughout the whole of 

 Ihe active operations in the field during the campaign, but 

 after the men were collected in standing camps at its termina- 

 tion and i thU favorable state of things continued until the 

 termination of the war. But immediately the men were again 

 quartered in towns and fixed posts, where they had a free ac- 

 cess to spirits— an inferior species of brandy sold there, tech- 

 nically called ' Cape smoke ' — numerous complaints made 

 their appearance among them." 



Captain Huyshc, in mentioning this tubjeet in his account 

 of the Red River Expedition (" Blackwood's Magazine," Jan., 

 1871, p. 64), says: " No spirits were allowed throughout the 

 journey to Fort Garry, but all ranks had daily a large ration 

 of .tea. This was one of the very few military expeditions 

 ever undertaken by English troops where intoxicating liquor 

 formed no part of' the daily ration. It was an experiment, 

 based upon the practice common in Canada, where the lum- 

 bermen who spend the whole winter in the backwoods, em- 

 ployed upon the hardest labor, aud exposed to a freezing tem- 

 perature, are allowed no spirits, but have an unlimited quan- 

 tity of tea. * * * Never have the soldiers of any nation 

 been called upon to perform more unceasingly hard work, and 

 it may be confidently asserted, without dread of contradiction, 

 that no men have ever been more cheerful or better behaved 

 in every respect." In another account of the same expedi- 

 tion, contained in the " Journal of the Pnited Service Insti- 

 tution" (Vol, XV-, p. 74), the author, under the title, "Ra- 

 tions aud Clothing," says : " This scale had been framed, 

 after much careful consideration, upon the allowance granted 

 the North American lumbermen, who perform the hardest. 

 possible labor during the extreme cold of a Canadian winter ; 

 so, although it was an unheard-of thiug in our army to send 

 off an expedition into a wilderness for live mouths without 

 any spirits, still, as the backwoodsman was able to do hard 

 work without spirits, it was rightly thought that the British 

 soldier could do the same. The men were allowed a large 

 daily ration of tea, one oz. per man, practically as much its 

 thev could drink. And aslamnowon this subject of 'Bohea' 

 - versus ' Grog,' I may as well state that the experiment was 

 most successful The men of no previous expedition have 



'..o-iiev or more cohltnuoaa 



labor for over four months, ami I think it may be confidently 

 asserted tied no troops have at :my time acquitted themselves 



will, greater credit. :: * * In Ihe Bed Kiver I 



there \va o i i> I no crime.' 1 



I not he diffiaait to produce many more witnesses to 

 I esa ifact. butOna more will be eufflcieatjy convincing, 

 namely, Sir Qarncl W tlseley, the hero of ihe Ashautee War, 

 who has just supersedi d <ofd ChelrnBford in the command or 

 Ihe British forces at ihe CapB, In his " .Soldier's Packet 

 Book 1 ' (Third ed., p. 188), hBSOyBi " Give your men aslilile 

 spirits as possible ; in most countries tea and coffee are much 

 more sustaining and more portable. * * The old super- 



stition that ' grog' is a good thiug for men before, during, or 

 after a march, has been proved by the scientific men of all na- 

 tions to be a fallacy, and is only still maintained by men who 

 mistake the craving arising solely from habit for the prompt- 

 ing of Nature herself. It is the commonest thiug to see men 

 when traveling at home taking brandy to keep them warm. 

 It is an ascertained fact that alcohol of auy sort reduces, in- 

 stead of increases, the temperature of the body. The use of 

 spirits in cold weather has been well tested during the various 

 polar expeditions, the medical officers of which all condemn 

 it as a preventive against cold. 



" No men require greater endurance lhau the trappers of 

 British North America, and none do a greater amount of hard 

 physical work than the voyageurs and lumbermen there, none 

 of whom drink spirits when in the woods, tea being their con- 

 stant beverage. * * * Our experience in the Indian mutiny 

 also carries out this theory. For mouths iu some places our 

 men were cut off entirely from all liquors, and they were 

 healthier than when subsequently it was issued to them as a 

 ration. By increasing the allowance of tea, and abolishing 

 that of rum, you diminish the supplies to be carried, to a great 

 extent, while you add to the health and efficiency of your 

 men; their discipline will improve as their moral tone is 

 raised, engendering a manly cheerfulness that spirit-drinking 

 armies know nothing of." 



Well, with this testimony before us, what is the beverage 

 that possesses the qualities desired? The testimony of those 

 just referred to, as well as the experience of all who have 

 camped much in tropical, temperate, or Arctic climales, as 

 well as the verdict of the pioneer, places tea in the front rank 

 of beverages for use in camp. It is astonishing what quanti- 

 ties are consumed, an ordinary allowance being one oz. each 

 person a clay, and by no means steeped to such strength as is 

 ordinarily found at our tea-tables in the city. It is simply a 

 wholesome beverage, mildly stimulating aud warming, which 

 seems to meebiu a more marked degTee* than anything else all 

 the conditions required, aud you will find that the trapper or 

 backwoodsman would hesitate long before starting on a lum- 

 bering, trapping, or camping expedition without a good 

 supply. 



I do not know that it is possible to give any startling in- 

 stances in which tea has proved a remarkable remedy for real, 

 anticipated, or threatened disorders; but the fact that in the 

 camping experience of the most noted explorers and Soldiers, 

 liquor being discarded aud tea used, sickness of any bind has 

 been comparatively unknown, would seem to be sufficiently 

 conclusive as to its beneficial qualities. It is not my inten- 

 tion, however, to become the advocate of tea or any oiher 

 beverage, but simply to demonstrate that alcoholic beverages 

 Should find no place among the camping equipmuii ol the 

 genuine sportsman; not resiing the conclusion at all on moral 

 grounds, nor their obvious tendency lo demoralization aud 

 disease, but simply on the fact that they serve no useful 

 purpose. 



r # §nllittfa 



REPORT OF THE FISH COMMISSION- 

 ERS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, IN JUNE 

 SESSION, 1879. 



THE general results of the work of the New Hampshire 

 Fish Commissioners during the past year has b 

 tended with general Euccess. As in every other State fish cul- 

 ture is yet in great measure experimental in many of its 

 branches-; but each year mark3 progress in methods and ac- 

 complishment. 



The new fishway at Amoskeag Falls has been constructed 

 with great skill and is believed to be a model of strength and 

 adaptab'dity. The material employed is granite, aud the 

 length of passage i3 over one hundred and forty feet to a fall 

 of only seven feet, thus giving a descent of only one foot in 

 twenty, Salmon are known to have passed up since its com- 

 pletion. 



The Commissioners were disappointed in their efforts to se- 

 cure full-grown salmon at the Plymouth hatchery for the pur- 

 pose of obtai u i ng spawn. This was due to the destruction of the 

 pound nets by the freshets in August and September, when 

 the female salmon came up the stream. This will be remedied, 

 and other provisions have been made which warrent the hope 

 of success with the salmon of the next run. 



In his letter to the Massachusetts Commissioners detailing the 

 work of the past year at Lawrence Falls, the hatching house at 

 that point beingowncd by the two States in common, Supt. A. 

 N. Powers reported the thorough testing of the water and the 

 demonstration of its perfect healthfuluesB and adaptation to 

 the salmon. The tanks at the Falls have a capacity of 000,000 

 salmon eggs. The California salmon-fry turned into the river 

 in 1878 were very numerous up to July of that year aud had 

 then grown to the length of about three inches. Of the At- 

 lantic salmon planting of 187G the river was full about the 

 middle of August. It was almost impossible, to fish without 

 hooking them, one man actually hauled up three at one cast 

 of the hook. From Prof. Spencer F. Baird 367,500 Galitornia 

 salmon eggs were received aud 300,000 of the fry planted in 

 the Pemigewasset River and other tributaries of the Merri- 

 mack. 



Thirty thousand brook trout have been hatched, and are 

 partially planted in Ihe neighborhoods af Plymouth and Man- 

 cheater, 

 | The distribution of land-locksd salmon since the last report 



