'FOREST AND STREAM. 



----- -- ■- — 



other animal food. More than this, they are in good condition; they 

 thrive well— though th8y do not grow quite so rapidly as upon a flesh 

 diet— and their flesh is firm and finely flavored. This discovery makes 

 trout culture not only possible in localities whereJt would not otherwise 

 be pract'cable, but in all cases more economical. Whether the veget- 

 able diet can be rigidly or uninterruptedly practiced is a matter for fur- 

 ther trial. Even if the result shows that a certain quantity of animal 

 food is necessary to the most perfect health and robust development, it 

 is still a fact of the utmost value that trout can be raised on a vegetable 

 diet, and that upon it alone they live and grow and fatten. 



Very truly yours, . M. Goldsmith, 



One of the Fish Commissioners for Vermont. 



Xntutul ]§istorQ. 



, — , — #_. — 



EDIBLE FISH OF THE PACIFIC. 



San Francisco, August, 1975. 

 Editor Forest and Stream:— 



As a field for the angler this coast, including California, Oregon, Wash- 

 ington Territory. Columbia, and Alaska, is considered by many good 

 judges as about the best in the world, and the Pacific Ocean probably 

 equals the Atlantic in its variety of edible fish, and excels it in numbers, 

 though I do not think this market comes up to that of New York, Bos- 

 ton, and Bait' more in the quality of the number of good fishes found in 

 the latter cities. We have such an immense abundance of salmon of 

 different species, (the Salmo guinnat being the best,) in all our seas and 

 many of our rivers, that most of our fine ocean fish are almost entirely 

 overlooked, particularly in a great commercial point of view, although 

 the halibut and cod might probably be made nearly equally good for com- 

 merce if the same attention were paid to them as to salmon. The ranges 

 of the halibut and true cod are, however, more limited than those of the 

 salmon. The former ranges from Oregon to the Alentian Islands and to 

 * the Behring Sea, the specimens caught weighing from one to 400 pounds. 

 The latter— the cod — the best for commerce, exclusive of the salmon, is 

 found in countless numbers from the coast of Washington Territory to 

 the highest ice floes. Of course we have these fish in plenty in our 

 markets in this city. The majority of the fish here are eatable, but some 

 species, as the sturgeon, etc., are of a coarse, dry, and indigestible char- 

 acter, although none of them can be said to be deleterious in their ef- 

 fects, or poisonous, unless they have become so, which is very rarely the 

 case, from feeding on poisonous substances. Both the sea and fresh 

 water fish are about equal as to their edibility, but the salt water fish are, 

 I believe, considered more nourishing and palatable. Neither should be 

 eaten when out of season, as.they are considered the best a short time 

 after spawning, and unfit to be eaten immediately after. 



Most of the salt and fresh v\ ater fish are brought to our market by 

 Italian and Spanish fishermen, and a few Chinese, who net them mostly, 

 or take them with long lines furnished with a multitude ol hooks, in our 

 bay, or at sea outside of what are called "The Heads. 1 ' They use small 

 smacks, furnished with one large sail, which extends from stern to head, 

 performing the office of both main and foresail. Those which go far out 

 to sea or to the Farollone Islands, about thirty miles, are provided with 

 "fish wells," placed in the centre of the vessels, by which the sea water 

 can flow in and out through a latticed bottom, thus, of course, preserv- 

 ing the fish alive and fresh. 



Tho number of fish are now being fast increased here, as elsewhere, 

 by our State Fish Commissioners and our Acclimatizing Society and 

 other persons, planting and growing many kinds of fish, especially the 

 salmon and trout, in our estuaries, lakes, ponds, creeks, etc^, for sport- 

 ing as well as market purposes, as is now being done in so many parts 

 of the world; indeed, we have now several breeding places, as on the 

 McCloud and Merced Rivers, etc. The supply of fish varies a good deal 

 here according to weather, tides, and ages of the moon, perhaps. 



Among the numerous fish that are found on our stalls are the salmon, 

 true codfish, and another variety, rockfish, (a species of sea bass,) 

 smelts, torn cods, sturgeon, halibut, white perch, soles, skates, sheeps_ 

 head, turbot, green fi.^h, pompano, sardines, kingfish, jewfish, ancho. 

 vies, sunfish, brook trout, salmon trout, or lake trout, mackerel, herrings, 

 "pike," (a species of carp,) and many others of lesser note. We have 

 at least five species of shellfish valuable for the table— one oyster, (the 

 Eastern do not yet seem to breed here,) two mussels, one cockie, and a 

 soft-shell clam. The oysters are small, not finely flavored, and are not 

 very abundant. We have no lobster, (it is yet doubtful whether the 

 Eastern kind has succeeded here,) but a crayfish or crawfish, or what 

 some call a large prawn (Palinwis,) very similar to the lobster in size 

 color, flavor, (though very inferior,) habits and general appearances ex- 

 cept that it lacks the large claws. We have plenty of shrimps. Crabs 

 are abundant. The abelone or aulone (Haliotis) is found as far north as 

 Poinlf Reyes, and abounds south of Point Conception. It is a large mol- 

 lusk with one shell, from five to seven inches across; the shells are beau- 

 tifully irridescent with rainbow colors, and it is now much used in the 

 art's for buttons, sleeve buttous, broaches, knife handles, inlaying, and 

 numerous other ornaments. Many vessels are engaged fishing for them. 

 The finest salmon is from 6 to 10 cents per pound when in plenty, white 

 ■sea bass are 20 cents, halibut 18 cents, soles 30 cents, kingfish 18 cents, 

 smelts 12£ cents, and pompano, the choicest of all fish here, $2.E0 per 

 pound. 



Within these two last years we have had more torn cod, identical with 

 the Eastern frostfish, than smelts in the bay. I often catch forty to fifty 

 torn cod in a morning in four or five hours' time. It is a tender, sweet, 

 and delicate fish for the table, but has no high flavor like the trout, 

 salmon, and halibut. The smelts have come into the bav late this year, 

 but are now being caught at Oakland L ong Wharf in plenty, and of large 

 size, averaging about ten inches in length. I sometimes take a great 

 manj r . They are rather game, but they and torn cod will not content one 

 for sport after trout and salmon fishing. E. J. Hooper. 



DOMESTICATED WOOD 



-♦ ■ 



DUCKS. 



Editor Forest and Stream:— 



In several answers to inquiries you say the "wood or Summer duck 

 cannot be domesticated." The following persons have had them:— Fred. 

 Mather, Honeoye Falls, N. Y.; J. N. Bicknell, Westmoreland, N. Y.; 

 Gen. Cuas. A. Johnson, Newburyport, Mass. *** 



[One of our correspondents made a misstatement of this 

 sort, but it lias been more than once corrected in these col- 

 umns, and the names given of parties possessing tame wood 

 ducks. The latter associate freely with barn-yard fowls. — 



Ed ] 



-©..♦- — - 



BALD EAGLE AT CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



« 



Davenport, Mass., August 23d, 1875. 

 Editor Forest and Stream:— 



Friday, August 20th, a bald or gray eagle, (Haliactus leucocephalus,) 

 alighted on a chimney at the pork packing establishment of J. P. Squires 

 & Co., in Cambridge. A- ladder was placed against the chimney and an 

 attempt made by a workman to capture it by throwing a noose over its 

 head. This it adroitly eluded, and, after swooping down upon its assail- 

 ant, soared away to alight upon the Putnam school house, where it was 

 shot by a citizen. It was evidently a young specimen, and measured five 

 feet from tip to tip of wings. A. F. Gray. 



««-H»- 



TURKEY BUZZARDS. 



* . 



Grand Man an, N. B., August 10th, 1875. 

 Editor Forest and Stream:— 



In looking over your issue of the 14th of January, 1875, 1 saw a state- 

 ment that a turkey buzzard had been taken at Calais, Maine, and marked 



accidental. For those whom it may interest I beg leave to inform you 

 that three were seen on this island last April, one of which was shot, 

 but unfortunately before I could procure it the party who shot it had cut 

 off its wings, which precluded the possibility of my stuffing and mount- 

 ing it. j. T. C. Moses. 



-<HH*- 



CENTRAL PARK MENAGERIE. 



Department or Public Parks, | 

 New York, August 22, 1875. f 



Animals received at Central Park Menagerie for the week ending Au- 

 gust, 21st, 1875:— 



Two Ring Doves, Turtur risorius. Presented by Miss Hattie Rosen- 

 thal. 



Two Night Herons, Nyctlardea gardeni. Presented by Mr. H. F. 

 Barrell. 



One King Snake, Ophibolus sayi. Hab. Gulf States. Presented by 

 Mr. Bernhard Speckels. 



One Equine Antelope, Hippotragus eguinus. Hab. North Africa. Th"e 

 first of the species ever exhibited in this country. 



Two Leopards, Fells leopardus. Bred in the Menagerie. 



W. A. Conkun, Director. 



foodhnd, ^ntm nnd %nrdm. 



, — + — 



Peaches. — The city has been flooded with peaches 

 until within the last day or two, when Delaware growers 

 have declined to pick their fruit, the proceeds not paying 

 expenses. During the early part of the week the fruit 

 were selling for 25 cents per basket, and the commission 

 merchants were not receiving back the amounts advanced 

 for freight. Now that the supply has been somewhat re- 

 duced and the same quantities are not coming forward, 

 prices have advanced to 75 cents per basket. The grocers 

 and small dealers are the only ones who have made a profit 

 out of the preseut glut, as consumers, unless they pur- 

 chase at the markets, are charged the usual prices. Prices, 

 however, must continue low for some time to come. Now 



is the time to preserve. 



-♦•♦ 



Tree Planting Again.— The importance of tree plant- 

 ing, and the profit, direct and indirect, realized from it, are 

 topics which cannot be pressed home too strongly or too 

 frequently upon our agricultural communities. We have 

 considered various phrases of this subject at different times, 

 but the most practical, and therefore the most useful ar- 

 ticles pertaining to the matter we have lately seen are those 

 by Gen. Jas. S. Brisbin, and we present below the sub- 

 stance of his statemets: 



"Gen. Brisbin gives the history of a ten-acre field of 

 black ash planted for hoop-poles. Where thinned at five 

 years from planting, the poles gathered at the first cutting 

 were worth $1,620. Two years later the rest of the young 

 trees may be cut and sold for $4,860. The total yield of 

 the ten acres thus planted would be $6,480, at the rate of 

 $725.70 a year for ten acres, or $92.50 per acre. Land 

 planting in walnut timber will in ten years yield more than 

 if the land had been planted each year in grain; and more- 

 over, a crop of corn or potatoes may be planted between 

 the rows the first and second years with no injury to the 

 young trees, as the walnut strikes a deep root and draws 

 sustenance from the subsoil. Three years from planting, 

 the trees will bear a peck of nuts each, and there are cer- 

 tainly few more delicious nuts than the fruit of the black 

 walnut tree . 



"An acre of sugar maples, at twenty-five years of age, 

 will average one foot in diameter and produce 2,000 pounds 

 of sugar annually. When the trees measure twenty inches 

 they will give 60,000 feet of lumber, worth $2,500, beside 

 a great deal of fuel, and 220 trees will grow on an acre. A 

 lot of chestnut trees planted in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 

 eleven years ago, is making a better return than the same 

 number of acres in orchard. The hickory is valuable on 

 account of its nut-bearing qualities and its wood. The 

 shelbark is the best for planting, either for wood or fruit. 

 The oak is the most valuable of all trees, and can be 

 readily raised from the seed, which should be gathered 

 in the Fall after the acorns drop. The best month to 

 gather the seed is October, and it should be planted at once, 

 or kept in a cool, moist condition until Spring. 



"The cottonwood commends itself to all Western be- 

 ginners on account of its rapid growth and easy culture. 

 It grows anywhere, and seems to be undying. If one is 

 cut down another springs up from the stump. Gen. Bris- 

 bin expresses the opinion that it would grow in almost any 

 of the Eastern States, and as a shade tree for cattle is un- 

 surpassed. The young cuttings are readily obtained from 

 Western nurserymen and cost but a trifle. The cotton r 

 wood furnishes better shelter and fuel in a shorter time 

 than any other tree in America. Several acres of these 

 have been known to grow seven feet in one year from the 

 cuttings. A thousand trees can be grown on an acre. The 

 soft maple is improved by cultivation, and at seven years 

 from planting will yield three ten-foot rails, while an acre 

 of soft maple at the end of the same period will yield 3,000 

 rails. In some sections good land is thrown out of culti- 

 vation because there is no timber adjacent whence to get 

 supplies of fuel and fencing." 



American Fruits.— Professor Asa Grey said, in a re- 

 cent address, of the undeveloped fruits of America: 



"A few wild fruits may be mentioned which manifestly 

 have great capabilities, that may or may not be developed 

 in the future. The, leading instances in my mind, are the 

 persimmon and the pawpaw; not the true pawpaw, of 

 course, which we have in Florida, but the Asia Minor, or 

 Western pawpaw, so called. Both persimmons and paw- 

 paws are freely offering from spontaneous seedlings, incip- 

 ient choicer varieties to be selected from both fruit when 

 only a few years old, thereby accelerating, the fixation of 

 selected varieties into races; and both give fruits of types 

 wholly distinct from any others we possess of temperate 

 climates. He that has not tasted a kaki has no concep- 

 of the capabilities of the diospyrus genus. The custard 

 apples of ti;e West Indies give some idea of what might 

 be made of our pawpaw when ameliorated by cultivation 

 and close selection for several generations. I have under- 

 stood that one of the veteran pomologists of the country 

 Dr. Kirkland, of Ohio, a good while ago initiated a course 



of experiments upon the pawpaw in this regard; it would 

 be well to know with what success, and whether the breed- 

 ing and selection have been continued through successive 

 generations. 



"Our American plumbs have for many years been in 

 some sort of cultivation and have improved upon the wild 

 forms; but I suppose they have not been systematically at- 

 tended to. Their exterior liability to black knot and other 

 attacks renders them, for the present, unsuccessful. 



"Finally, if promology includes nuts, there is a promiss 

 ing field uncultivated. Our wild chestnuts are sweeter 

 than those of the Old World; it would be well to try 

 whether races might not be developed with the nuts a- 

 large as marrons or Spanish chestnuts, and without diminu- 

 tion of flavor. If we were not too easily satisfied with a 

 mere choice between spontaneous hickory nuts, we might 

 have much better and thinner-shelled ones. Varying as 

 they do, excessively in the thickness of the shell and" the 

 size and flavor of the kernel, they are inviting your atten- 

 tion, and promising, to reward your care. The pecan is 

 waiting to have the bitter matter between the kernel bred 

 out; the butternuts and black walnuts to have their ex- 

 cess of oil turned into farinaceous and sugary matter, and 

 their shells thinned and smoothrd by continued good breed- 

 ing, when they will much surpass the European walnut." 



The Land op Horses.— The "blue-grass region" ap- 

 pears to be a paradise for horsemen according to the fol- 

 lowing statement made by the correspondent of an ex- 

 change: 



"The moment you enter the 'blue-grass region' you heat- 

 nothing but horse-talk. The whole section lives upon pedi- 

 grees. The stable boys banter pedigrees in a nomencla- 

 ture of their own. The men utter pedigrees with a volu- 

 bility like the flowing of a never-ending stream. Even the 

 ladies of polite society will chatter pedigrees, and talk as 

 fluently of sire and dam as if they had received their ac- 

 complishments in the precincts of the breeding portions of 

 the stock farm. Everywhere it is horse, mare, filly, foal, 

 gelding. The stables are swarming with them, the streets 

 are alive with them, the fields are dotted with them like 

 the cattle on a thousand hills, and the visitor, even though 

 he came merely to see, has a secretiveness and obstinacy 

 more profound than the mysteries of a Sphinx if he does 

 not buy before he comes away some little equine specimen 

 for which he has no earthly use. There is a certain Free 

 Masonry or brotherly love among the horse dealers of Ken- 

 tucky. If one dealer has nothing in the horse line to 

 answer your demands he will furnish you with a saddle 

 horse and accompany you for miles around the neighbor- 

 hood to inspect stock which he is sure will just suif your 

 fancy. Their houses are thrown open to your entertain- 

 ment. The rarest wine of corn and the freshest of mint, 

 and the richest of Alderney cream and the tenderest of 

 Spring chickens are offered with a princely generosity to 

 feed the flame of your horse fever, which must not be al- 

 layed till you have left your money behind you on some of 

 the stock farms. This is the logic of all the attentions and 

 pedigrees and horse enthusiasm, and it is wonderful how 

 the interest is kept up year after year, and how the surplus 

 funds of our wealthy horse-fanciers are poured with an in- 

 creasing volume, into the coffers of the 'blue grass region."' 



—Robert Bonner, of New York, has just purchased the 

 seven-year-old trotter, Grafton, from Richard Penniston, 

 of Lexington, Ky. He is by Waxy, dam by Kavanagh's 

 Gray Eagle, and is stated to have made a trial mile at 

 Cleveland in 2:15-£-. The price is not known, but is said to 

 be $35,000. 



7he MmmL 



Thk Newark Bench Show.— We alluded in our paper 

 last week to the action that has been taken in regard to the 

 holding of a great Bench Show of Dogs in the city of 

 Newark next Fall. Such success has attended each dog 

 show held in this country thus fary (an institution of quite 

 recent date here, although long in vogue in - England,) and 

 so rapidly has the interest increased in the matter of breed- 

 ing and training hunting dogs, that it seemed as though a 

 special effort, if made, might bring out a larger display of 

 dogs and a larger attendance of spectators that has hereto- 

 fore been known. New Jersey was recommended as a de- 

 sirable locality for such a show, not only because it is cen- 

 tral, but because it has a larger proportion of first-class 

 dogs than any other State of its size. Accordingly an in- 

 formal meeting was held on the 15th instant at Newark, 

 which was even a greater success than was anticipated. 



The meeting was enthusiastic throughout, and the prom- 

 ise for the Fall is even more radiant than Autumn colors. 

 Mr. Jacob Pentz tendered the use of his house, and acted 

 as Chairman of the committee acting on appointments. 

 Many well-known representatives of sporting interests were 

 present, and we give herewith the names of those chosen 

 as the Advisory or Executive Committee:— N. A. Doremus, 

 E. A. Hawes, W. Grummond, Herman Schalk, Theo. Mor- 

 ford, Foreman Taylor, Charles H. Raymond, S. J. Bestor, 

 Burdett Loomis, A. P. Baldwin, William Hughes, F. S. 

 Underbill, Eugene H. Shorb, and Jacob Pentz. 



Horace Smith, of the Forest and Stream; Fred. G. 

 Skinner, of the Turf, Field and Farm; T. C. Banks, of the 

 Rod and Gun, and Charles A. Foster, of the Sportsman, 

 were appointed a committee to be consulted upon matters 

 regarding premiums, programmes, and advertisements. 

 Upon motion made by one of the committee, N. A. Demo- 

 rest was unanimously selected to act as Chairman of the 

 meeting, and presided over the parties present with great 

 tact and discretion. Several animated discussions and ar- 

 guments arose during the evening, hut through the urbane 

 but firm management of the Chairman everything pro- 

 gressed in the most harmonious and satisfactory manner. 

 Col. Skinner, of the Turf, acted as Secretary.. Five hun- 

 dred dollars were subscribed to be given in special pre- 



