Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copt. ) 



Sex Months, $3. f 



NEW YORK, OCTOBER 11, 1888. 



t VOL. XXXI.— No. 13. 



1 No. 318 Broadway, New Vobk. 





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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Jekyl Island. 



The Division of Forestry. 

 The Sportsman Ton hist. 



Through Okeechobee to the 

 Gulf. 



The Cruise of the Pelicans. 

 Natural History. 



Spoils from a Dredge, 



Notes on Snakes. 



Belligerent Muskrats. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Another Man Astray. 



In British Columbia. 



Nathan Harrington. 



Hunting tbe Gray Squirrel. 



A Day's Shooting in My Mary- 

 land. 



Chicago and the West. 

 Game Notes. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 

 Lake Minne tonka. 

 Days in Michigan. 

 More Maine Jigging. 

 Striped Bass near New York. 

 Chicago aud the. West. 



FlSHCUI/TURE. 



Report of Wisconsin Fish 

 Commission. 



The Kenned. 

 Beagles. 



Coursing Club Meetings. 

 Lessons from Buffalo. 

 Dan bury Dog Show. 

 Bristol Dog Show. 

 Dogs of the Circumpolar 

 World. 



Eastern Field Trials Club's 

 Entries. 



That Mitchell Letter. 



Richmond Show. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallerv. 



The Boston Fall Meeting. 



The Trap. 



The Ohio League. 



Toronto Tournament. 



The St. Louis Shoot. 



Eastern Shooting Circuit. 

 Yachting. 



The Loss of the Cythera. 



Norton System of Ballasting. 



Racing Notes. 

 Canoeing. 



American Canoe Association. 



N. Y. C. C. Challenge Cup. 



Charm. 



Answers to Correspondents. 



JEKYL ISLAND. 



THE successful propagation of fish is now an old 

 story, having passed beyond experiment; and the 

 restocking of rivers and streams from which fish were 

 nearly extinct has proved a boon and a blessing alike to 

 the sportsman and the consumer. The propagation of 

 game should now be taken up seriously and become a 

 branch to be fostered and encouraged in tbe same man- 

 ner as the methods of the fishculturists. That game can 

 be successfully restored to depleted portions of the coun- 

 try is not a question of doubt. Experiments have shown 

 that under proper conditions perfect success is sure to 

 result from the effort. 



As an instance of the good results, we can quote the 

 satisfactory efforts of the Jekyl Island Club, which owns 

 Jekyl Island, off the coast of Georgia. Capt. E. L. 

 Ogden, one of the prominent originators of the club, 

 which is composed largely of representative men of this 

 city and Chicago, was chosen to superintend the erection 

 of the magnificent club house, now completed, and to 

 carry out the general improvements, and to take steps to 

 restock the island with game. There were already a 

 goodly number of deer on the island when purchased^ 

 some wild turkeys, 400 head of wild cattle, 200 head of 

 wild horses, and a large number of wild hogs. The 

 cattle and horses were removed; and the work of exter- 

 mination of the hogs was carried on systematically and 

 their number considerably reduced. Last fall and winter 

 5,000 native quail were procured and placed on the 

 island. One hundred English pheasants were procured 

 from England; seventy-eight arrived in good order and 

 were immediately placed in small lots in the pens pre- 

 pared for them, under the charge of a gamekeeper versed 

 in the care of this bird. In the early spring of this year 

 they began laying, and each day the eggs were care- 

 fully removed and placed under common barnyard hens, 

 as the female pheasant is proverbially an indifferent 

 mother and rears but a small percentage of her hatch. 

 From the seventy- eight birds over 1 ,200 eggs were gathered 

 and from 1,000 eggs there were hatched 900 young and 



healthy pheasants, of which over 850 have come to 

 maturity and are past all the exigencies of bird raising. 

 These have been turned loose, after retaining a couple of 

 hundred for brood purposes the coming season. It will 

 thus be seen that the introduction of that beautiful bird, 

 the English pheasant, is comparatively an easy matter; 

 and wherever the poacher can be excluded they can be- 

 come plentiful. By the simple rule of three as illustrated, 

 if 850 healthy birds can be raised from seventy-eight, 

 what will be the result of a continuous system of propa- 

 gation by the club? If 200 are reserved for next season, 

 their laying should at the same rate result in producing 

 over 2,000 birds, so that at the end of two years from the 

 start the club will have a matter of 3,000 birds to begin 

 with for limited shooting; and as the shooting will doubt- 

 less be regulated to moderation, they never will need 

 to resort to artificial or hand raising thereafter, as the 

 percentage of natural product of the wild birds will keep 

 up the supply. The club has provided largely for food 

 for its game by the cultivation of fifty acres in various 

 parts of the island, the crops consisting of maize, oats, 

 sunflower, small peas and other cereals, all of which are 

 left unharvested and must prove ample for the birds, 

 aside from the supply of natural food. 



The. quail placed on the island have given equally satis- 

 factory' results, it being estimated that in their undis- 

 turbed condition they will produce two broods in the 

 season, and already, as the superintendent writes, the 

 woods are full of them, and the season will open with 

 probably 20,000 birds— a pretty good result for the first 

 year. The turkeys have also greatly increased, the re- 

 moval of the horses and cattle leaving them undisturbed, 

 greatly facilitating their increase. 



The Jekyl Island Club is to be congratulated on the 

 great success it has met with in the caitset in its plans of 

 a grand game preserve. 



The Jekyl Island Club opened late last season, but it 

 was so overwhelmingly popular that, we learn, new ac- 

 commodations are being added for the approaching season , 

 which will open this year about December 1 . 



THE D WIS ION OF FORESTRY. 

 rpHE annual report of the Division of Forestry for 1887, 

 -1 issued by the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture, covers a hundred and forty-seven pages of closely 

 printed matter, in which the writer evidences the facility 

 of the expert in dealing with a problem which, although 

 of not immediate moment to the people of this country, 

 is of vital importance to its future progress and well 

 being. 



This is the first prof essional report submitted by Mr. B. 

 E. Fernow since he entered upon his duties as the chief 

 of the Forestry Division, and no one will be more ready 

 than he to agree with us that this report is something 

 very different from the annual reports submitted by the 

 heads of the forest departments in countries in which 

 there is a forest administration, and very different from 

 what an annual report in our own country should be , in 

 view of the steady diminution of the timber supply of 

 this continent. A forest report should be primarily a 

 record of the administration of the State forests, but 

 unhappily the work of forest administration has not yet 

 been entered on in this country, and from year to year 

 our apprehension is deepened that it never will be entered 

 on as long as there is any compact area of virgin forest 

 which may be administered at a profit from the outset. 



At the same time the report before us, emanating as 

 it does from a man whose professional learning and 

 special qualifications insure his comprehensive grasp of 

 the whole problem, leaves some room to hope that he 

 will yet succeed in overcoming the inertia, both of Con- 

 gress and the people, and securing an appropriation ade- 

 quate at least to the inauguration of the work. Meantime 

 Mr. Fernow, wanting the opportunity for the display of 

 his abilities as a forest administrator, is doing very valua- 

 ble work in his contracted sphere. This report is perhaps 

 the most valuable contribution to the forest literature of 

 this country yet published. It embodies a vast amount 

 of valuable information conveniently tabulated, and while 

 it gives very little space to broad generalizations, it gives 

 a mass of statistics, which can hardly fail to set the 

 reader generalizing. 



We have had so many warnings that the timber supply 

 of the country will be exhausted in a few years at most, 

 and the fatal day has been postponed so frequently, that 

 no more attention is paid to the warning; but when, 



along with the statistics of the annual consumption of 

 pine timber in this country, we find statistics of the yield 

 of all the European forests, and of the extent to which 

 England draws upon them for their surplus, we can hardly 

 help feeling very sorry for our children when we reflect 

 on the prices they will probably have to pay for imported 

 timber. 



Mr. Fernow's report deals mainly with facts or with 

 figures which are as near an approach to the facts as are 

 at present available. There are detailed and apparently 

 reliable accounts and statistics of the forest area, avail 

 able supply of timber, and general condition of the 

 forest area in every State of the Union, together with 

 accounts of the area reported as having been planted to 

 forests by private persons. The principal forest trees of 

 the country and all exotic trees which have been success- 

 fully introduced into the country are described, and in- 

 structions are given for their planting and treatment in 

 the nursery. The report further deals with the more 

 abstract problems of systematic working plans, and their 

 scientific, economic and practical basis, in which the 

 writer asserts little, but evidences a broad grasp of his 

 subject, such as is to be expected from a man trained to 

 the profession, and from no other, however brilliant his 

 natural capacities. 



We can do no more than indicate the general charac- 

 ter and principal branches of the report, and commend 

 it to every one interested in the forest question as the 

 work of a man capable of imparting a great deal of valu- 

 able information and very eager to indulge in system- 

 atic experiments to aid in the tabulation of further 

 precise and reliable data respecting rate and conditions 

 of growth, and other subjects, a knowledge of which is 

 of first-class importance as affording a sound basis for 

 forest management. 



We may confess to some little measure of disappoint- 

 ment that the chief of the Forestry Division does not 

 urge upon Congress either the desirability of taking up 

 some suitable area of still virgin forest, say for example 

 the forests of the Yellowstone Park and adjoining region, 

 for systematic administration on an economic basis, or the 

 assumption of a suitable area of exhausted forest or of 

 forest denuded of its pine timber for restoration ; but he 

 appears to encounter so much difficulty in persuading 

 Congress to treat the subject seriously that he is content 

 to limit his demands to the few thousands necessary for 

 scientific experiment and investigation in forest matters. 



There is little reference in the report to the importance 

 of conserving such forest areas as still remain in the 

 hands of the Government, but in the bill submitted to 

 Congress by the American Forestry Congress, the princi- 

 pal provisions of which are embodied in the report, the 

 subject has been treated in practical detail. 



Now that New York has a chief game and fish pro- 

 tector, whose province it is to direct the district protectors 

 and give them aid and encouragement, those persons 

 who are interested should communicate with that officer. 

 His address is Frederick P. Drew, Mechanics ville, N. Y. 

 Information should be furnished to him; and if the man 

 who sends the information has the backbone to come out 

 and assist the protectors, so much the sooner will the 

 good time come. There is always an abundance of an- 

 onymous evidence, and there are hosts of people who 

 will give limited information when they can do so with- 

 out making themselves known. Now r that the State has 

 appointed officers to execute the game laws, well-mean- 

 ing citizens should have no more squeamishne?s about 

 giving their assistance openly in this direction than they 

 would have in matters pertaining to other branches of 

 law and good morals. 



There ought to be a better way to reduce the surplus 

 of dogs than the brutal shooting on sight in the public 

 streets, in vogue in numerous more or less civilized com- 

 munities. Fort Hamilton, New York, has a constable 

 who shoots valuable sporting dogs, in the presence of 

 women and children, at that. He does it under cover of 

 an outrageous town ordinance, and this same ordinance 

 is shamefully perverted in its execution. The curs be- 

 longing to voters are unmolested; they go loose in the 

 streets, and may go mad for the matter of that if they 

 want to; but this constable with a shotgun takes good 

 care to murder the dogs of people who have no votes to 

 cast for the local justice, whose name is Church. 



