Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER 21, 1882. 



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Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 Nos. 39 and 40 Park Row. New York City. 



Editorial. 



The Old Barn. 



The Blfle for the Match. 



Leasing the National Park. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



"Any Letters for Me?" 



Hollvwood Manor. 



Winter Talks on Summer Pas 

 times.— vi. 

 Natural History. 



"The Sea Serpent." 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



December. 



8uail in Virginia, 

 ur New Jersey Letter. 

 Notes from Cape Charles, Va. 

 One Opinio ;.:■'-- i. 

 Sea and River Fishtng. 

 Anglers' Asso'n of Penna. 

 Blue-Back Trout. 

 With Hackles and Gentles.— vi 



Sea and River Fishing. 



The National Rod and Reel As- 

 sociation. 

 _ i. .■ : . ■ he 



The Ohio Commission. 

 The Kennel. 



The National Field Trials. 



Dog Show at High Point. 



The Gilrov Field Trials. 



The New Bedford Bench Show. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Matches and Meetings. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



Spreading Ballast. 



Hawse-Pipe Critics. 



: ',1 m ;:,;i::/ i ■ ooi.';: 



How Traps Kill Yachting. 

 Single Hand Yachts. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



To its tens of thousand* of friends the Forest and Stream 

 wishes a very Merry Christmas; and hereicith offers its sub- 

 stantial quota of seasonable entertainment. 



LEASING THE NATIONAL PARE. 



THE Yellowstone National Park is, it appears, to be 

 leased to private parties. An agreement was entered 

 into on the first day of last September, between Acting 

 Secretary Merritt L. Josslyn, of the Interior Department, 

 and Carroll T. Hobart, of Fargo, and Henry T. Douglass, 

 of Ft, Yates, Dakota, for the leasing for a period of ten 

 years of portion* of the reservation. Six different plots of 

 ground are to be included, to be situated, of course, in the 

 most attractive portions of the Park, and each plot is to 

 cover about one section of land, 640 acres. A monopoly of 

 hotel, stage and telegraph privileges is to be enjoyed by the 

 lessees. The sum to be paid for these exclusive privileges 

 does not appear to be known to any one outside of the ring, 

 in which it is to be hoped Mr. Merritt L. Josslyn, Acting 

 Secretary, is not to be included. The significant clause in 

 the despatches to the public press reads as follows : ' 'The 

 sum paid for the privilege cannot be ascertained by the 

 copies [of the agreement] sent to the Senate, the place where 

 this important item should appear being left blank." 

 Whether it was one dollaT or one hundred thousand dollars 

 per annum nobody knows. 



This is certainly a very charming scheme to railroad 

 through a temporary land grab, which will, if successful, 

 put more money into the pockets of its projectors than any 

 single set of individuals have lately made ont of this gov- 

 ernment. People have growled at the Pacific Railroad 

 land grants, but they, however much they may have ad- 

 vantaged individuals, did and are doing a marvellous work 

 in developing the resources of the West, and are thus an 

 unquestioned benefit to the country at large. But this neat 

 little Yellowstone Park scheme, so far as it has been 

 developed, benefits no one save its projectors. But fov 

 compactness, prospective profit, and, if the projectors will 

 kindly allow us to use the word, for impudence, it is cer- 

 tainly unparalleled in the nnnals of land grabbing in this or 

 any other country. 



Here is a franchise which in itself is worth some millions 

 of dollars, and which, in claims to be prosecuted against 

 the United States Government at the expiration of the lease, 



may fairly be valued at several millions more, which is to 

 be turned over to certain individuals for nothing or a mere 

 song. The two residents of Dakota, whose names are put 

 prominently forward, are not the leading parties in interest, 

 for public report joins with them the names of Rufus Hatch 

 and a distinguished ex-Senator from Minnesota, sometime 

 Secretary of the National Treasury. Supposing this lease 

 to be granted, on whatever terms, the taxpayers of the 

 country will at its expiration, unless it is properly guarded, 

 have a comfortable little bill to pay to the Yellowstone Na- 

 tional Park Improvement Company. There will be claims 

 for some hundreds of miles of wagon road at $10,000 per 

 mile, say $3,000,000; claims for six or eight hotels, with 

 outbuildings, stables, fences and general improvements, at 

 fifty to one hundred thousand dollars each, $300,000 to 

 $800,000; claims for perhaps 200 miles of telegraph line, 

 with plant, instruments, buildings, etc., at $1,000 per mile, 

 $309,000. Total, perhaps, four millions of dollars. Of 

 coiu-se there will be other items, no doubt amounting to as 

 much more. We mention only the obvious ones. The 

 clean up of the company, supposing it goes out of business 

 at the end of the ten years, will be rich enough to satisfy 

 most men and will pay a very handsome final dividend. 



In the meantime the projectors of this company mean to 

 obtain their privileges at as v low a rate as possible. No 

 fault of course can be found with that — it is human nature ; 

 but we trust that Secretary Teller, who has hitherto kept in 

 the background in the matter, and Senators Vest, Harrison 

 and McDill will see that our unfortunate and much-preyed- 

 upon government may at least have what is denominated in 

 the vernacular of the Territories "a fair shake." 



We must say that we fail to see why the Interior Depart- 

 ment should give away a privilege of such great value. 

 We should all be glad to know why this franchise was 

 granted to these particular persons, and, above all, whether 

 any general notice was given of the intention of the Depart- 

 ment to lease the Park. Was the lease put up at auction 

 and disposed of to the highest responsible bidder, or is there 

 some secret reason why Messrs. Hobart and Douglass and 

 their associates could induce the officials at the head of the In- 

 terior Department to turn over to them this very neat thing? 

 Have Messrs. Hobart, Douglass, Windom and Hatch clone 

 anything to deserve so well of their country that the peo- 

 ple's pleasure ground should be turned over to them, in 

 order that they may make handsome fortunes out of the 

 public? If so, we have failed to hear of it. 



That there is an inner history to this scheme seems per- 

 fectly clear, and we hope most earnestly that it may be 

 brought to light by the inquiries of the three Senators 

 whose names we have mentioned. 



It is true that the Department, with a great apparent show 

 of care for the rights of the citizen, has stipulated that all 

 tourists shall have free access to the grounds leased, by 

 which we suppose is meant that the company shall not in- 

 close the curiosities with a high board fence and charge 

 an admission fee at the gate. Generous Interior Depart- 

 ment! how tenderly you care for the rights of every citizen, 

 and bow zealous that all shall have the freest opportunity 

 to enjoy the beauties of the Park. Did it never occur to 

 you that this company has no need to charge twenty-five 

 cents for seeing a geyser as a separate item. All that will 

 go into the bill for board, lodging, transportation, and the 

 dozen other charges, and it will be so skillfully distributed, 

 that the traveler will pay it without a thought that he is 

 being robbed. 



If there had been nothing underhand in all this business, 

 there would have been no need to conceal as carefully as lias 

 been done all information about it. The whole matter, if 

 it was a fair business transaction, might have been carried 

 on in an open, aboveboard fashion. But as things stand at 

 present we must say that the transaction has a most un- 

 pleasant flavor of trickery. Mr. Merritt L. Josslyn may be 

 able to explain the alfair in a manner which shall be satis- 

 factory to the public, who will await such explanation, and 

 the results of the Senatorial inquiry, with a good deal of 

 interest. It appears, however, that when he was before the 

 Senate Committee on Territories on the morning of Decem- 

 ber 15, for the purpose of making such explanation, there 

 was not much to be got out of him. At least the daily pa- 

 pers are entirely silent: as to what be said. 



There appears to be good reason to believe that this pro- 

 ject is neither more nor less than a barefaced attempt to use 

 this government reservation for the purpose of enriching a 

 few speculators at the expense of the people at large, Those 

 who are interested felt that to attempt to have the 

 Park transferred bodily to them would be a little more than 

 even such long-suffering creatures as the American people 



would endure. So they had to be contented with a long 

 lease, which they hoped to be able to engineer in such a way 

 that they would get it for nothing. There is some reason 

 for believing that there is a strong lobby behind the Yellow- 

 stone National Park Improvement Company. Let us see 

 whether it will be strong enough to carry the measure 

 through; whether Congress will be so forgetful of itsduties 

 as to sacrifice the interests of the people to those of a hand- 

 ful of speculators. 



In the meantime we trust that nothing will be done to- 

 ward carrying into effect the agreement made by the Acting 

 Secretary. The people will not enjoy seeing their only 

 pleasure ground turned into a side show to fill the pockets of 

 any set of individuals, unless at le'tst the government shall 

 receive some equivalent. 



We are by no means prepared to say that certain portions 

 of the Park should not be leased to private parties. 

 There is certain work to be done there which cannot well 

 be undertaken by the government. But if such lease or 

 leases are to be entered into, the rights of the publie, and 

 the rights of the government mast be protected in every 

 possible way. There should be no opportunity for indemni- 

 fying claims to be made at the expiration of the lease, and a 

 fair price should be paid for the very valuable privileges 

 which may be granted to the lessees. 



THE OLD BARN. 



PSTHETICLY and bucolicly the barn has had some 

 -*- / share of consideration, and more from the strictly ag- 

 ricultural points of view— both the practical and the "high 

 farming" standpoints ; but it has never been properly con- 

 sidered i» its relations to the shooter. We have read often 

 enough, perhaps too often, of the gray barn and its shingled 

 roof, blotched and spotted with moss and lichens; of the kine 

 sheep, poultry and sweet-smelling hay it shelters ; of the sports 

 of the children beneath its cobwebbed rafters— and of model 

 barns, with their newfangled stables and cellars for manure, 

 roots and what-not — huge, ugly wens they are upon the 

 landscape, unbecoming it as the steam sawmill does the 

 woods, or the steamboat the lakes that belong to the deer 

 and the trout. But who has told us anything of barn shoot 

 ing- 



We hear it said of a bad shot that "he could not hit the out- 

 side of a barn;" of a worse one, "that he could not hit a barn 

 if he was inside it with the door closed," and the wonder is 

 how he could miss it in that case if the barn were not too 

 wide or too long for the range of his gun, unless his charge 

 went through some wide cranny or through the "swallow 

 hole," which, urban reader, is not where the barn swallows, 

 but where the swallows barn — being an apperture, heart or 

 diamond shaped, sawed in the gable of the old-time barn by 

 its builder, who had a soul for the fitness of things beyond 

 the skill of his hand for the fitting of thinps — for the ingress 

 and egress of the ever-beloved swallow. 



Beyond this we hear nothing of barn shooting, and yet 

 what country boy has not targeted his first gun, whether new 

 or old, new to him a»d prized above all his worldly posses- 

 sions, on the barn? And if his pot-metal or breech-burned 

 piece has scattered widely and feebly, doing less execution 

 on the boards than on hisshoulder, has not he sought to bolster 

 his faith in his gun by believing worm holes to be shot holes? 

 Behold how the weather-beaten sides of the ancient barn, 

 reeling and tottering, bigger than Jumbo even, and as 

 dangerous as any elephant to approach in a high wind, for it 

 might then fall on oue, are peppered with shot of all sizes, 

 from bullets, buckshot, and BBB, down to No. 1. (No 

 smaller shot were used when Planeo was consul, though 

 only a chipmunk were the lonelj' victim.) Some are driven 

 clean through, some embedded out of sight, some just stuck 

 in the siding, dully staring at you through the oxidization 

 of threescore years. What gun of bygone days, when quail 

 and grouse and woodcock were swarming in copse and 

 swamp, and deer were as plenty as trees are now, belched 

 forth with mighty throes, and agony to its shooter, its flint- 

 and-steel-igniled charge against these now long storm-beat 

 boards, then new exhaling the odor of the woods yet linger- 

 ing in them? Does the ancient long smooth bore or Queen's 

 arm do occasional duty yet, as a sporting weapon when 

 Reynard flees before the hounds, or against the thieving 

 crow or the marauding hawk? Mayhap its stalwart engi- 

 neer of those days tells with the garrulous tongue of age his 

 youthful exploits to his gaping grandchildren; mayhap lies 

 asleep under the sumacs and golden rods in the old grave- 

 yard. , 



To him who cherishes his beloved though out of date 



