5-- 



RECREATION 



held on to a three-thousand-acre tract on 

 Black Mountain— and got fifty thousand 

 dollars for it three years ago. And it has 

 doubled in value since then. 



When we were allowed to chase the deer 

 with dogs, many deer were killed at the 

 various stands on the river. Since then, 

 while the deer are plentiful, they are hard 

 to kill, being well-protected by the laurel 

 and other tangled undergrowth, which 

 makes still-hunting impracticable. The 

 laws against deer chasing are well observed 

 arid the deer are reaping the benefit. 



The bears are greatly on the increase and 

 there is a blue grass settlement about the 

 extreme head of the river, called Beaver 

 Dam, which has all but been driven out of 

 the sheep business by bears. This is a 

 hardship to small land owners whose farms 

 lie at too great an elevation to raise grain. 



On the Black Mountain run one man 

 claimed to have identified the signs of 

 one hundred and seventeen bears in one 

 day's hunt. That seems a good many bears, 

 but I have hunted and fished so long, and 

 told about my adventures at so many camp- 

 fires, that I cannot consistently deny any- 

 thing. Nevertheless, every now and then 

 a hunter runs onto a bear and kills it. 

 Premeditated killing of bears is rarely 

 known, as this wisest of the forest animals 

 knows well how to avoid men. A rabbit is 

 courageous compared to a black bear. 

 This shows the superior intelligence of 

 bruin. 



About twenty years ago an unarmed 

 fisherman killed a bear with a large stone 

 at the Red Hole. He was resting at the top 

 of a precipitous bank of Mauch Chunk 

 shale when a bear, chased by dogs, came 

 into the river and passed at the foot of the 

 bank. The man cast a large stone down 

 upon it and stunned it so that he was able 

 to kill it. It was a two-year-old. The 

 occurrence is well-authenticated. 



The difficulties with the bears and the 

 sheep remind one of the stories of the 

 killing of tigers in India, where every killing 

 of a man-eating tiger is preceded by the 

 appeal from the village that the sahib come 

 and rid them of the dangerous beast. 

 This always accompanies a tiger story. If 

 some sahib wants to kill some of our surplus 

 bears we will get up the right kind of an 



appeal. Dogs that won't run deer are needed. 

 The sheep-killers are generally the big- 

 gest bears of them all, and are very wise. 

 They never enter a field without first mak- 

 ing a complete circuit to see if a man has 

 crossed the fence. If he has, they " with- 

 draw." One sheep raiser found that hang- 

 ing a half-dozen lighted lanterns about his 

 farm caused the bears to leave his flock 

 severely alone. 



We have been expecting the trout to give 

 out in this stream for many years, but time 

 seems to have no effect on them. There are 

 always about the same number, and I speak 

 of fifteen years' constant experience. There 

 have always been trout to catch and the 

 charm of the country attracts all classes 

 and conditions of men. Fifty trout in a day 

 can easily be caught when the water and the 

 air are right, if one is a fair trout-angler. 

 I caught twenty-four good ones there last 

 summer one morning before breakfast. 



The place that agrees with me best is the 

 grass-land when the blue grass first begins 

 to grow. The valley is over three thousand 

 feet above sea-level and the peaks about rise 

 to five thousand feet. Then I do not care 

 so much for the fishing. I like to feel that 

 grass and look up to the hills and say my 

 piece : 



"Ye crags and hills, 



I'm with you once again; 



I hold to you the hands 



You first beheld; 



Methinks I hear your echoes answer me, 



And bid your son a welcome home again! " 



In writing of this country, mention 

 should be made of the ramp, which has 

 never been accorded its proper place in the 

 literature of woods and waters. Like its re- 

 fined and chastened cousin, the onion, it 

 is a lily, and is food for the hungry. It is 

 among the first of the woods' plants to make 

 its appearance and is a great boon to the 

 mountaineer and the camper who is out of 

 onions and needs an anti-scorbutic. I do 

 not know why its praises are not sung in the 

 journals devoted to the red gods. It may 

 be that it is not widely distinguished or its 

 virtues not generally known. As a salad 

 it is without a peer and the breath of the 

 ramp eater obviates any necessity for fly 

 dope. Strangers eat too freely and are often 

 made sick. The writer would like to know 



