226 



RECREATION 



weigh less than a pound and a half Now, the stated newspaper summer 

 taken as they came, catch as catch can, correspondent, turned loose to grass, is 

 and none thrown back. This is re- always enthusiastic. His descriptions 

 markable, for there are always small of rural haunts are therefore subject 

 ones mixed with the large. And the re- to mortification. They are always heart- 

 suit is much the same in all the lakes, iest when they effervesce. But I am 

 of which there are at least two hundred no four-year-old colt just out of har- 

 in Douglas county alone. They all yield ness. I have looked the entire conti- 

 pike, pickerel, perch, croppies, sunfish nent almost over, and am free to say 

 and pike perch, with no end of frogs that for a country devoid of mountain 

 and minnows on the side. Some of the features and partaking purely of the 

 old anglers here call the small mouth pastoral, I have found none to equal 



bass "grey bass," but middle Minnesota in 



I do not find that syn- beauty and ever- 



onym in any of the changing variety ; and 



standard books, or in 

 Jordan, Goode or Gil- 

 bert, though it is well 

 enough as a distinc- 

 tive appellation, and I 

 am inclined to favor 

 it. 



It is important for 

 a summer saunterer 

 or sojourner to be 

 sure about his loca- 

 tion, not only as a 

 sporting ground but 

 as a social court. And 

 as I said, there is no 

 mistake about Gene- 

 va Beech. The qual- 

 ity of its guests, as 

 much as its local at- 

 tractions, determines 

 the eligibility of a ho-| 

 tel. It may occupy 

 the most beautiful 

 spot on earth, and all 

 its appointments and cuisine be every- 

 thing to please and praise, but if 

 undesirable people are conspicuously 

 present, it cannot pay long as an invest- 

 ment ; while if it once has the good 

 fortune to secure the "right kind of 

 people," it will be difficult to frighten 

 them away. One of our best resort 

 journals well remarks that "it is not 

 snobbery or affectation on the part of 



A. BLANKET INDIAN 



it is practically un- 

 limited. The very 

 contour of the land 

 makes this possible. 

 Consider, if you 

 please, that this is the 

 center of the great 

 reservoir system 

 which supplies some 

 of the principal rivers 

 of the continent. Here 

 on this crowning wa- 

 tershed the Mississip- 

 pi and the Red River 

 of the north have 

 their sources, so close 

 together and so near 

 akin by birth and as- 

 sociation that the dei- 

 ties of the woods have 

 always marvelled why 

 they turned their 

 backs to each other 

 and took opposite 

 directions, one to the freezing Arctic, 

 and the other to the tepid South 

 Atlantic. In this sylvan nursery of 

 streams, in the very cradle of these di- 

 verse temperaments and erratic moods 

 we find a congregation of catch basins, 

 lakes and feeders, so numerous that 

 they are hardly named or numbered. 

 They seem the very counterpart of 

 the galaxy across the sky. There 



refined guests to object to constant and are lakes of every conceivable confor- 



enforced association with persons whose mation and outline : round lakes with 



manners and habits are less fastidious pebbly shores, oblong lakes margined 



than theirs." with wild rice and reeds, lakes with 



