Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, i 

 Six Months, $2. t 



NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 28, 1889. 



t VOL. XXXII.-No. 6. 



I No 318 Broadway, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Practical Forest Restoration 



Our Dog Show Supplement. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Away from the Throng. 



A Month in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. 

 Natural History. 



Those Mysterious Creatures. 



Bird Notes. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Grouse Snares and Dogs. 



Express Bullets. 



The Cumberland Club. 



The Maine Game Laws. 



Bursting of a Rifle Barrel. 



Uncle Tine's Bear Story. 



Game Notes. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Tuckerton Waters. 



The Menhaden Barons. 



Carp and Suckers Again- 

 More Pickerel— Less Trout. 



Florida Kingflsh and Tarpon. 



FlSHCULTURE, 



Minnesota Fish Commission. 

 The Kennel. 

 New York Dog Show. 



The Kennel. 

 St. Bernard Club. 

 .American Mastiff Club. 

 The American Kennel Club. 

 The National Dog Club. 

 Dog Talk. 



Kennel Management. 

 Riele and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and GaUery. 

 The Trap. 



Middlesex Gun Club. 



Suburban Grounds. 



Canadian Trap Notes. 

 Yachting. 



Inland Cruising in Steam 

 Yachts. 



Biscayne Bay Y. C. 



Seawanhaka Corinthian Y. C. 



Small Launclies for Cruising. 



Building at Bordentown. 



Changes in Yacht Measure- 

 ment. 

 Canoeing. 



A Cruise in a Dory. 



Racing Rules for the Coming 

 Meet. 



Quaker City C. C 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE TWO DOG CLUBS. 



AFTER a brief and tempestuous career the National 

 Dog Club announces its intention to merge into the 

 associated membership of the American Kennel Club. 

 When the former body was organized last July we ex- 

 pressed the conviction that there was in this country 

 room for two clubs, one on the scheme of the American, 

 a club of clubs, and one working on the lines laid down 

 by the projectors of the National, a club of individual 

 breeders, each club working in harmony with the other 

 for the common good. We frankly acknowledge that in 

 taking this view we did not foresee the virulence of the 

 assaults which were to be made upon Dr. Perry and his 

 associates by individuals representing the older club. The 

 character of these abusive onslaughts is so well known 

 that there is no necessity of recalling them by specific 

 mention. It is enough to say that while those persons 

 who thought it their duty to bespatter Dr. Perry with 

 charges of duplicity and bad motives may have believed 

 all that they wrote, and may have persuaded others of the 

 truth of their charges, no one personally acquainted with 

 Dr. Perry and his associates ever questioned their perfect 

 sincerity, honesty of purpose, and straightforward con- 

 duct. Dr. Perry has borne himself all the way through 

 with conspicuous ability, dignity and credit. His club 

 has been potent for good in a measure; beyond that, 

 whatever benefit might have been achieved by it has 

 been thwarted by its over-zealous, and we think mis- 

 taken, opponents. 



Now that the breeders, by the action of the National 

 Dog Club, in amalgamating with the American Kennel 

 Club, appear to be again united, the American Kennel 

 Club has a clear field before it; and in the future it must 

 be" judged by its record, as it has been in the past. The 

 degree of confidence and support given to it will be 

 measured by the good sense and justice of its actions. 

 The good sense and justice of its actions will depend 

 upon the composition of its delegates. 



It is to be hoped that the club may commend itself by 

 its performances, and that the kennel interests of the 

 country may be conserved and advanced by open, fair, 

 honest, judicious government. 



PRACTICAL FOREST RESTORATION.— I. 

 \ S exploiters of forest the American backwoodsmen 

 have no superiors; and even in the matter of timber 

 transport, whether by land or water, they are the peers 

 of the most highly trained foresters of France and Ger- 

 many. But as regards the creation of forest, the restor- 

 ation of denuded forest areas, or the fostering of natural 

 reproduction, very few of them are aware that these 

 operations constitute a proper part of the forester's pro- 

 fession. There is nevertheless a growing recognition of 

 the fact that the State ought to take some practical 

 measures for the restoration of denuded forest areas, to 

 provide for the maintenance of a perennial timber sup- 

 ply; and in view of the probable future demand for tim- 

 ber at figures very much above current prices, private 

 owners of denuded forest tracts or of tracts from which 

 the pine or other immediately marketable timber has 

 been cut out, are concerned to know whether they could 

 not profitably restock the area, instead of allowing it to 

 be forfeited for arrears of taxes. But just here they are 

 confronted with the practical difficulty, that they neither 

 know how to go about the task of restoration nor where 

 to turn for instruction. 



Of course the nurseryman is at hand, he knows how to 

 raise pine seedlings fit for transplanting in the forest, and 

 he may possibly know that if a bared area is to be planted 

 with nursery stock of pine, or other coniferous timber, it 

 will require about three thousand plants to the acre, to 

 provide for timber free from knots at the heart; his ex- 

 perience in planting has been mainly confined to fruit 

 trees, his best men will hardly set out a hundred trees a 

 day. and if asked the terms on which he would be pre- 

 pared to restock a tract of five thousand acres, would 

 name a figure somewhere between sixty and a hundred 

 dollars an acre. Now, it goes without saying that at the 

 present market price of timber there is no encourage- 

 ment to engage in raising forests at an outlay of from 

 sixty to a hundred dollars an acre for planting only. 



The object of the present series of articles is to point 

 out that a great deal may be done in the direction of 

 forest restoration at a very moderate outlay by following 

 nature's methods, and subordinating them to intelligent 

 direction. 



In the case of woods which have been denuded of their 

 choice timber only.'and the ground simply laid bare in 

 spots, we have all the conditions favorable to the germi- 

 nation of any seed lying hidden in the soil, or that may 

 be dropped on it. The mass of decaying vegetation on 

 the surface, the rich soil of vegetable and insect remains 

 below, the advantage of sufficient shade to protect the 

 soil from evaporation and of sufficient sunlight to give 

 vigor to everything that germinates, combine to consti- 

 tute the conditions most favorable to all kinds of vegeta- 

 ble growth. On these very grounds the forest character 

 of the floor is frequently lost, by being taken possession 

 of by grass, which, when it once has hold of the soil, 

 keeps possession and gives tree seed no chance of coming 

 up. If the forest clearance was not very heavily tim- 

 bered before the felling, the soil will probably be found 

 stocked with young tree seedlings of some sort, as thick 

 as they can grow. Perhaps not one in a thousand of the 

 seedlings is pine, or such other timber as the owner 

 would like to have the young forests stocked with, but 

 since not more perhaps than one in a thousand of the 

 seedling can reach maturity, the presence of one pine 

 or other valued seedling in a thousand may, if evenly 

 distributed, suffice for restocking the bared area with 

 the required species. Nine hundred and ninety-nine 

 per acre of the seedling must come out to enable 

 the one in a thousand to reach maturity. Left to them- 

 selves there would be a straggle, in which the strongest 

 would survive, but if man takes part in the struggle in- 

 telligently, he can provide for the survival of the trees of 

 his election by cutting out the surrounding trees when- 

 ever they show any signs of dominating them. 



And if it is so simple a matter to favor certain species 

 of existing seedlings at the expense of others growing 

 along with them, it is no less simple to grow artificial or 

 planted species, and favor them at the expense of the 

 natural sown seedlings in possession. For example, a 

 forest consisting mainly of hardwood trees, with one or 

 more openings to the acre, from each of which a large 

 pine tree has recently been cut out, and these openings 

 stocked wholly, or almost wholly, with hardwood seed- 

 lings, a condition of things which will frequently exist, 

 it would cost but a mere trifle to plant out nursery-raised, 

 two or three year old, pine seedlings about ten feet apart 



through all the openings; that is from thirty to forty 

 plants to the acre. Under skilled management this work, 

 including cost of raising plants, need not materially ex- 

 ceed a dollar an acre for the area operated on. Some ad- 

 ditional outlay may be necessary for cutting back any 

 hardwood seedlings that may crowd the pines too much 

 and threaten to overtop them ; but if the pines keep their 

 heads above the crowd it may not be necessary to inter- 

 fere for twelve or fifteen years, wdien the hardwood 

 being cut out will leave a clean pine forest to grow up 

 and retain secure possession of the soil. 



In many such forests the hardwoods will gradually 

 come into demand with increase of population, at first 

 for fuel. This demand should be met by reserving the 

 best stems most likely to come into demand for timber, 

 cutting out all the inferior stuff area by 'area, and as 

 soon as it is removed dibbling in pine seed at 5 or 6ft. 

 apart over the whole cleared surface. The hardwood 

 seedlings will probably go ahead of this pine, and in 

 this case it will be necessary to cut them back the fol- 

 lowing year. 



In carrying out this operation on a large scale it should 

 be remembered that the pine seedlings require protection 

 from summer's heat and drought, and winter's extreme 

 cold, and that the required protection is best afforded by 

 large trees shading the ground, conserving its moisture, 

 modifying its temperature, and breaking the force of the 

 winds, and that consequently no large areas of the forest 

 should be laid bare at one time, unless there are strong 

 nursery-raised plants, that have been two or three times 

 transplanted, that are available for restocking. Such 

 plants, having a dense mass of fibrous roots, take hold of 

 new soil and find sustenance readily. 



Under the systematic method of natural reproduction 

 by self-sown seed in a compact forest, the first step is to 

 thin out about one tree in every four to let in sufficient 

 light and air to foster the germination of the seed as it is 

 shed: from two to five years later another thinning out 

 of the timber is resorted to, to afford light and air enough 

 to foster the growth of the young crop, and after another 

 interval of from two to five years, the young crop having 

 o-ot secure possession of the soil, the old timber is cleared 

 off, and the young plants left to keep each other clear of 

 side branches, and to struggle for supremacy for perhaps 

 twenty years, when the forester goes in with his axe and 

 thins the thicket down to six or seven to ten feet apart, 

 leaving of course the strongest trees. 



If the forest were now left to itself for a couple of cen- 

 turies, the seven or eight hundred trees to the acre would 

 perhaps be reduced to ten or fifteen giants to the acre, 

 covering the whole ground; but by systematic thinning 

 out, the value of the timber removed would be equal to 

 the value of the final crop. 



Going back to the subject of restocking forest -which 

 has only had its pine timber cut out, it will be readily 

 seen that the bared areas, having a forest floor and forest 

 shelter, may be restocked with any required species of 

 timber by sowing or planting at a very trifling cost, and 

 that if the remaining hardwood come into demand for 

 fuel at a price that will pay the cost of cutting it out, the 

 whole area may gradually be stocked up with young 

 pine at perhaps one-tenth of the cost which would have 

 to be incurred for restocking a bare area, a fact which 

 should be weighed carefully by owners meditating allow- 

 ing their woodlands to be forfeited for taxes. 



DOG SHOW SUPPLEMENT. 



LAST week we gave a four-page supplement devoted 

 to duck shooting. To-day's issue contains a supple- 

 ment with the report of the New York dog show. The 

 comments and criticisms on several breeds are very full, 

 and they are also intelligent and worth studying. We 

 pride oxtrselves upon the high character of these show 

 reports given in the Forest and Stream. 



The menhaden fishing question is again to the front 

 The subject is one that cannot be ignored so long as the 

 public is unwilling to see valuable food fishes ground uc 

 into oil and fertilizers. 



The New York courts have just decided that to call a 

 man a '-swindler" and a -'bluffer," meaning that he 

 claims a bigger rifle score than he actually makes, is not 

 actionable. 



