FOREST AND STREAM. 



253 



curtail the market and decimate the buyers, so that it would 

 seem politic at least on the part of dealers to put their prices 

 so low that purchasers may be attracted and multiplied. The 

 Forest and SiBE-AMhas proved the direct and substantial 

 benefits of printing a cheap paper. Formerly it published 

 Sixteen pagesforfg; now it gives twenty-four pages for $-i, 

 and to clubs of three or more for $3 to each subscriber. This 

 is equivalent to eight: pages per week for fifty-two weeks in 

 the year, or 416 pages of reading matter per year, for $1. "We 

 feel certain that if dealers would first look to their price tags 

 carefully, then consider the hard times, and after that the 

 wants of ppertsmen and the vast army waiting to he supplied, 

 they would think on these things as seriously as we have done 

 and now do, and not only be advised but convinced. 



We have been prompted to "break loose" on this subject, 

 just at this momeut, because it has been brought to our notice 

 by an intelligent and wealthy citizen of San Francisco, who is 

 now visiting New York. He says that the people of the 

 Pacific coast find it far preferable to purchase their goods 

 direct from England than from Eastern houses, simply be- 

 cause they are vastly cheaper. It is true there, will always be 

 a class of buyers of superior guns, rods, and dogs, just as 

 there is of high-priced Jergensen and Baguelin watches. The 

 trade should provide for these : but it should also provide, 

 good, serviceable goods at moderate prices for depleted purses. 

 It is especially incumbent upon U3 here in America to avoid 

 creating an aristocracy of sportsmen, and to prevent even the 

 impression that our sportsmen are an exclusive kid-glove and 

 silk-stockingfraternity. This impression will certainly obtain if 

 exorbitant prices prevent any but wealthy persons from buy- 

 ing sporting goods. Even now the humble bushman or moss- 

 backer who hangs up his cast iron $5 muzzledoader after a 

 hard day's work and empty bag, looks with envy upon the 

 man in velveteen and cords, who sports his gold repeater and 

 $36"0 gun. The moment legitimate field sports are curtailed 

 within the limit and means of a few individuals to the exclu- 

 sion of the multitudinous masses, we may well bid good-bye 

 to game protection in our wilderness places, and look for 

 lame birds and confiding deer in close preserves, where, as in 

 Great Britain, moneyed men fence them iu for their periodical 

 diversion. 



We earfflol, perhaps, estimate how much the cultivation and 

 dissemination of a proper taste for out-of-door sports depends 

 upon the low prices of sporting goods, and we shall hold our 

 dealers in a measure responsible for failure if they do not 

 mark down their extravagant prices, and give us a rod, reel 

 and line that will catch fish scientifically, or a gun that will 

 not shake to pieces in a year, without making the primary 

 cost so great as to make the fish and game we catch the most 

 expensive luxuries we eat. 



Cards of Reference fob Sportsmen.— A very good wrin- 

 kle is casually referred to by our Washington correspondent 

 in his last week's letter. He says that the Game Protective 

 Association, of Alexandria, Virginia, is furnishing to its mem- 

 bers reference cards for their protection while hunting among 

 the. farmers. The cards set forth that the bearers are legiti- 

 mate sportsmen, giving their names and residences, and in 

 every way designating them to be respectable and responsible 

 men out for a day's shooting. The farmers are beginning to 

 take kindly to these gentry, now that they have ascertained 

 that they are really the protectors and propagators of the birds 

 they shoot, and do not depredate on chicken houses and burn 

 rail fences, but respect their property rights. No measure 

 that we can devise or suggest seems better adapted than this 

 to promote the mutual interests of farmers and sportsmen, and 

 we respectfully urge upon our game clubs to adopt it and 

 issue cards of reference to their members. This will make 

 the clubs really responsible for their good behavior in the field, 

 and we have no doubt that any farmer who can prove actual 

 depredations can prosecute and recover from the clubs for any 

 damages caused by its members. The quail, or partridge, is 

 almost the only game bud left among the fields of our middle 

 and Western States, and since the gunners must have sport, 

 it will be well for the farmers to join them in a mutual benefit 

 association. The sportsmen, by protecting the birds "and 

 planting colonies here and there, increase their numbers. All 

 they ask in return is the privilege of shooting them in season, 

 while they guarantee to the farmers immunity from depreda- 

 tions of pot-hunters, by making it impossible for any one to 

 slioot over a farm unless he carries his card of reference from 

 his club, which would be even a stronger guarantee than a 

 letter of introduction from a friend. It will be readily seen, 

 if this plan is adopted throughout the whole country, that its 

 effect must be to increase the numerical and moral strength of 

 clubs, and inferentially to promote the laws and multiply the 

 game. "Will the other sporting papers indorse these views 

 and aid the work ? 



Yet Anoihee Sportsman's Journal.— We offer our con- 

 gratulations to The Country, both generally and particularly ; 

 for one day last week a journal with the above caption, de- 

 voted to field sports, made its debut. With an exceedingly 

 neat head, a medalion of a setter being flanked right and left 

 by a polo party and a mail coach, The Country's outside page 

 is quite attractive. Of course, with the first issue of a paper a 

 great many difficulties, simply of a physical character, have 

 to be overcome. If, then, in this new aspirant to public 

 favor, in the cut of the postulant's clothes alone, there may be 

 nothing which is either novel or starting, still he will doubt- 

 less have a fair claim to public attention. The editor, Mr. 

 W. M. Tilcston, having assisted for some time m conducting 



the Forest and Stream, ought to have a certain amount of 

 experience in such matters. To natural talents, Mr. Tileston 

 adds a great deal of tact and good judgment, with familiarity 

 in such topics as he intends treating. Of course, starting a 

 new paper in these precarious limes is always a venture at the 

 best. The initiatory movement in a paper is a good deal like 

 that in a run-away match. The trouble is not as much in the 

 running oft' as it is the come-to, which is sometimes quite 

 difficult. A' great many new journalistic enterprises are 

 started in New York. For one genuine success there are a 

 thousand failures. It behooves us not to philosophize over 

 the causes of ill success. One thing, however, is absolutely 

 positive— that when misfortune comes to a paper it is never 

 the public who are at fault. The history of every paper 

 which has been successful is the story, first, of natural tact or 

 journalistic ability, and afterward of great industry, of won- 

 derful patience, and the surmounting of untold difficulties. 

 Looking casually over a kind of charnel-house publication, 

 which seems to gloat over the misfortunes of newspapers, we 

 find the following : " Sixty-eight newspapers were started in 

 the United States and Canada during September of this year, 

 1677. Of these, lour were dailies, 48 weeklies and ten 

 monthlies, the remainder beiug semi-weeklies and semi- 

 monthlies. During the same month 59 publications suspend- 

 ed, six of which were dailies, forty-five weeklies, two semi- 

 weeklies, five monthlies and one semi-monthly. The largest 

 number of new publications during the month are credited to 

 New Vork. The most suspensions occurred in Illinois." 



Certainly, during the same period of time, untold businesses 

 of an entirely different kind have been started, whose ultimate 

 success will be quite as problematical as that of the news- 

 papers. We disclaim, however, any inclination to cast a wet 

 blanket over a new journalistic enterprise, even in a peculiar 

 line of business, which we must think to-day is more or less 

 fully covered. There is always room for more, even should 

 the doctors crowd the patients. In conclusion, we may quote 

 a well-known aphorism of Josh Billings : 



"Never take tlie bull bi the liorns.yvmg man, bat taKe Trim til tUe tale ; 

 then yn kan let go when yu want to." 



VACATION RAMBLES IN MICHIGAN, 

 WISCONSIN AND MINNESOTA.— No. 3. 



, By tite Editor. 



\Y • . 



Brethren: November 1, 1877. 



Recurring frosts and occasional flurries of snow are driving 

 the wild fowl southward ; and as they honk overhead or dab- 

 ble noisily among the wild rice stubble for the grains that now 

 lie strewn upon the surface of the ponds and lakes, I am re- 

 minded that a full month has elapsed since I lay perdu at 

 eventide and in the early gray of the morning upon one of 

 those " passes" so famous in Wisconsin and Minnesota, wait- 

 ing in vain for an expected flight of ducks which never came. 

 It was too warm then for wild fowl, and an unusually hot 

 September had scarcely given place to that modified tempera- 

 ture which makes the Indian summer so captivating to the 

 man who values pure air and sunshine more than Diogenes. 

 The only boon the old philosopher asked, you will remember, 

 was that his solicitous friends would stand aside "out of his 

 sunshine!" A month ago a few wood ducks local to the 

 neighborhood, and an occasional bunch of early mallards, 

 were the only flights we saw, and they were few and far be- 

 tween, as are the flights of angels earthward. Few, indeed, 

 fell to our guns. Too high they flew, and when we would 

 watch them afar off like specks against the zenith, the brave 

 Colonel of the Second Minnesota Regiment would say : "Mark 

 up !" like the j r outh in the poem whom neither old man nor 

 winsome maiden could persuade to stay below. The youth 

 paid no attention to nadir* Now, however, the season in 

 the northwest is at its best, and I fear I ahnost envy the gun- 

 ners who are counting feathered trophies by the score. Glori- 

 ous sport they are having in these days. Even now fragrant 

 testimony thereof is ascending to my nostrils in grateful odors 

 from the kitchen (I am writing my letter at home), where a 

 plump brace of canvas-backs, presented by our portly friend, 

 S. H. Turrill, of Chicago, is being artificially prepared by a 

 cook who never fails. I said " a brace," I should say a pair— 

 male and female. Together they erst winged their hopeful 

 flight along the margin where the succulent wild celery grows, 

 and sought their breakfast in banquet halls where dead ducks 

 sat around, lifelike in their attitudes of dissemblance; then, to- 

 gether, they fell lamenting victims to their misplaced confi- 

 dence ; and now, "as beautiful in death as in life" (nay, even 

 more beautif id, to us, on closer inspection), they will together 

 dissolve and float away to the inevitable duck-heaven upon 

 clouds of their own steaming juices, flavored by good old port ! 

 Verily, it is nice to be a duck ! 



How easily are our thoughts led off by trifles from the more 

 serious obligations of our lives! My roast duck, and what 

 the boys are now doing with their guns in Wisconsin and 

 Minnesota have nothing to do with my summer fishing for 

 trout, bass, pike and grayling in Michigan, which I proposed 

 to write of when I began this letter. Not to say that there are 

 no ducks in Michigan, by any means, for there are rafts of them 

 on many of the lakes and rivers ,■ but there are no canvas-backs 

 there that I have ever heard of, although they are common in 

 localities in Wisconsin, where the valisncria or wild celery 

 grows. I have never seen the wild celery in Michigan, yet it 



♦Brethren ■ I'm growing too old now forthiH sort, of thing. Forgive 

 me ! Ttua is probably the last time 1 shall ever attempt to perpetrate a 

 joke, H, 



may be there. Its absence will account for the non-appear- 

 ance of the canvas-backs. 



As to the fish. If any angler wishing to visit Northern 

 Michigan will send to the office of the Grand Rapids and In- 

 diana Radroad for one of Mr. J. H. Page's very excellent 

 guide books, and follow the maps and directions therein, I'll 

 guarantee that his lines will be cast in pleasant and profitable 

 places, and that the summer sun will nowhere beam upon 

 him with more benignant and modified temper. The railway 

 company mentioned have provided camp cars for excursion 

 parties, fitted up with sleeping-borths for nine persons, and con- 

 taining stove and utensils, pantry, closets, tables, ice chest, 

 etc., and in short everything that is necessary for comfortable 

 living, except bedding and dishes, which those chartering 

 cars must provide. This makes camping out a high art. 

 The traveling conch has only to be shifted off on a siding near 

 the locality to be hunted and fished, and it then becomes a 

 house and permanent headquarters. The car is furnished at 

 the surprisingly low rate of $10 per day, so that the expense 

 to a party of niue is reduced to a minimum. There are scores 

 of excellent localities along the line of the road and its branches 

 and connections which can be thus reached ; those that can- 

 not are few. One must wonder why these facilities and ad- 

 vantages are not so eagerly seized as to keep the demand for 

 them constant. 



When the revered Joel Penman took his memorable sleigh- 

 ride, he described the party as being composed of three per- 

 sons. He says : "There was Joel, me, and myself." One can- 

 not too highly commend his endeavor — as it should be the ambi- 

 tion of every man — tomakethe most of himself. In like manner, 

 there were three of the writer. Nevertheless, and notwithstand- 

 ing his triple representation, itwas impossible for him tooccupy 

 the full complement of nine berths which the camp cars tendered 

 him afforded. Even three at a berth could not be thought of. 

 So he determined to forego the luxury and rough it in the old 

 style. Just at this juncture fortune tlrrew iu his way a gen- 

 tleman named A. B. Turner, known throughout Michigan as 

 the senior editor of the Grand Bapids Eugle, and an extra r- 

 dinary " inan of letters," having been post master for nine 

 years; also as the best bait-angler in the State— not to say that 

 he could not manipulate a fly wilh the best, but in his special- 

 ty he excelled all others. Yes ; it was indeed a treat to watch 

 him impose upon the credulity of a sagacious trout ! No per- 

 plexity of currents or tangle of roots prevented his invariable 

 success. The dexterous management of his grub or squirrel- 

 baited hook was a marvel to new beginners. But I anticipate. 



It was with this Waltonian thoroughbred that I determined 

 to cast my lines. A brief interview with him ended in a 

 solemn compact to " go-a-fisbing " and divide the spoils. I 

 do not mean by this that we agreed to divide the fish that 

 were spoiled— by no means. It was not our purpose to catch 

 trout in wasteful numbers, but rather to "spare the rod." 

 [The antithesis in the old proverb applies only to truant school- 

 boys.] And so the shades of an early August evening found 

 us in a Woodruff sleeping car, en route for Petosfcey, the 

 terminus of the main line of the road, and our first objective 

 point. A branch leads off from Walton Station to Traverse 

 City, on Grand Traverse Bay, twenty-six miles distant. 

 Walton is 115 miles from Petoskey, and the intermediate 

 country is where the angler loves most to dwell. If the 

 stranger will conceive an ovate tract of country interspersed 

 with many lakes, large and small, bounded on the east by the 

 main railroad, on the south by its branch, and On the north 

 and west by the waters of Lake Michigan, of which Grand 

 Traverse Bay is a considerable part ; and remember that very 

 many streams cross the railroad and flow into the intermediate 

 lakes and thence into Grand Traverse Bay, he will obtain a 

 fair idea of the "lay of the land" and the fluvial geography 

 of the country and the accessibility of the waters which he 

 wishes to fish. At the same time he must bear in mind that 

 the streams leading to the lakes westward from the railroad 

 run through a wilderness navigable in part by skiffs only with 

 difficulty. If he wishes to rough it in camp, and is provided, 

 he will do well to go in by these streams. In some cases there 

 are primitive stage or wagon routes, and the distances being 

 short the journeys are not tedious. If he wishes to indulge 

 this sense of comfort he will continue by the railroad to Petos- 

 key, and by taking steamboat there he can touch at the various 

 landing places along the Bay ; and from these points little ex- 

 cursion steamers ply through the several chains of inland lakes 

 to the mouths of the various streams that he has already 

 crossed at the railroad. These streams contain trout, grayling, 

 or pike, and occasionally all three. As there are lodging 

 houses throughout, more or less comfortable, one can scaicely 

 imagine an excursion that can be made with more facility or 

 comfort by either iadies or gentlemen. It is not necessary 

 to depend on the lodging-houses either. Tents and camp stuff 

 can be carried on the steamboats, and sites may bo located 

 where there is no brush to be cleared out, and where milk, 

 eggs, vegetables and fresh bread, or any other requisite can be 

 obtained at shortest notice. Four days is sufficient to traverse 

 the whole country if one is making a hasty tour. Steam or 

 sailing yachts can enter the lakes either by Charlevoix or 

 Cheboygan, and secure a range and variety of scenery that 

 will scarcely find its equal. Cheboygan is on the Lake Huron 

 side, and Charlevoix on the Lake Michigan side. The features 

 of the two routes are very different, and one can hardly de- 

 termine which has the greatest charms. The one is accessible 

 to the other, via. the Strait of Mackinaw. 



Emmett County is the northernmost part of the peninsula. 

 It is almost a circular island, Petoskey is on its periphery, a ad 





