Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 

 Six Months, $1 f 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER 6, 1888. 



l VOL. XXXI.— No. 20. 



1 No. 318 Broadway, New vork. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. „ ... 



The Marksman's Holiday. 

 Popula- Forestry Instruction. 

 Snap Snots. _ . „ , 



The Misfortunes of Pam Puk- 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Notes on Western Florida — V. 



The Charms of Beaufort. 



The Mazeppa Hitcn. 

 Natural History 



Destruction in Migration. 



A Gli apse of Demerara. 

 Game 3ag and Gun 



A Hunt on Grape Creole. 



Peter the Hermit. 



St. Louis Sportsmen. 



Reform in New Brunswick. 



Bowley's Quarter Club. 



Deer Shooting in Newfound- 

 land. 



Rifles for Small Game. 



Shooting Squirrels over De- 

 coys. 



The Keene Bullets. 



Michigan Deer and Bass. 



South Carolina Quail. 



Game Notes. 

 Camp-Fire Flickerings. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Silkworm Gut and Leaders. 



Angling Contests in New Zea- 

 land. 

 Fishculture. 



A Spawning Funnel. 



Fishculture. 



National Fishery Association. 



Terrapin Culture. 

 The Kennel. 



Collie Club Stakes for 1889. 



The Eastern Field Trials. 



Southern "field Trials. 



Salisbury's Pedigree. 



That Vexed Spaniel Question. 



The St, Bernard Prizes. 



Salisbury and Hanbury's 

 Peeress. 



Distemper. 



Dog Talk. 



Kernel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap shooting. 



Range and Gall«rv. 



Thanksgiving Scores. 



The Trap. 



Nexv York Suburban, 

 Yachting. 



Singlehanders. 



The America's Cup. 



Ninety or Forty Feet 



The Cat Yawl Empress. 



Steam Launches for Shoal 

 Waters. 

 Canoeing. 



American Canoe Association. 



Leaky Cauoes Cruising Out- 

 fit. 



Through Bull's Falls to Har- 

 per's Ferry. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



POPULAR FORESTRY INSTRUCTION. 



THE New York Academy of Science devoted an hour or 

 two the other evening to discussing the condition of 

 the forests of this State; and the reports of their meeting 

 in the daily papers has had the effect of momentarily at 

 least drawing public attention again to this subject. 



Less than half a dozen years ago the people of New 

 York were thoroughly aroused upon the importance of 

 the forest question. It was pointed out to them that the 

 Adirondacks were in great part denuded of their timber, 

 that periodical fires followed the woodman's axe, that the 

 Hudson was being silted up, and that in fact a series of 

 conditions had been inaugurated which would sooner or 

 later result, firstly in the destruction of New York as a 

 shipping port, secondly in the destruction of the fertility 

 of the soil to such an extent that there would be nothing 

 to ship. It was urged that we were in fact going to ruin 

 with a full head of steam on; and the collective wisdom 

 of the people decided and gave as their verdict that 

 nothing could save the country but wise legislation in- 

 volving the enactment of forest laws and the reservation 

 of a State forest area, with a Forest Commission to pro- 

 vide for its proper conservancy. 



Nothing could be more commendable than the prompti- 

 tude with which our legislators at Albany responded to 

 the popular appeal for forest legislation. They drafted a 

 bill admirable in every detail, and displayed a praise- 

 worthy zeal in incorporating every good suggestion in it; 

 they appointed a Forest Commission, whose duty it would 

 be to undertake the economic and scientific administra- 

 tion of the State forests, restock denuded areas, bring the 

 whole under a high system of conservancy, establish 

 chairs of forestry in our universities and colleges, and 

 above all to diffuse among the people at large a mass of 

 popular literature, designed to enlighten them as to the 

 economic importance of properly conserved forests, their 

 far-reaching influence upon the welfare and destiny of 

 nations, the short-sightedness of the policy which would 

 allow them to be sacrificed for a temporary gain, and 

 generally to cultivate so enlightened a popular sentiment 



upon this important matter as would insure popular sup- 

 port of well-considered legislation. 



Well, we have our forest bill and our Forest Commis- 

 sion and establishment, and as far as we can learn they 

 have about as much practical value as the famous edict 

 of the Sultan of Bagdad, which provided that no one 

 should go out after dark without a lantern in his hand, 

 but which made no provision to compel its being lighted. 

 The Forest Commission does not commit itself to any 

 practical measures of forest administration, nor fritter 

 away its hoarded stores of knowledge upon an unappre- 

 ciative public, and the Legislature benignly relieves it of 

 all responsibility in the matter by withholding the neces- 

 sary funds. If its lantern is not lighted, it is no less true 

 that the Legislature withholds the necessary oil. 



And so the public, believing that this matter has been 

 properly and intelligently disposed of by adequate legisla- 

 tion, goes about its business and thinks no more about 

 it. Meantime the evil is being aggravated from year to 

 year, and the task of reformation growing ever more Her- 

 culean; but happily the general public is being slowly en- 

 lightened. That popular literature which the Forest 

 Commission was to have evolved out of its accumulated 

 stores of knowledge has faded to appear, but the demand 

 for concise practical information on this important sub- 

 ject in popular style is just as great to-day as ever it 

 was. We need in America some such practical effort as 

 that successful one in France, when by means of cogent 

 reasoning addressed to the masses the intelligence of the 

 people was appealed to and public spirit aroused in 

 favor of wiser forest administration. The history of 

 that movement has already been given in these columns, 

 but now that academies of science are discussing the 

 forest problem, it may not be out of place to recur once 

 more to the lesson afforded by France. There the change 

 of base on this forestry question was due in a large de- 

 gree to the influence of one book, written specially to 

 accomplish this reform. This was the prize essay, "Les 

 Etudes de Maicre Pierre sur 1' Agriculture et les Forets"— 

 The Studies of Master Peter about Agriculture and 

 Forests— translated under the title, "The Forest Waters 

 the Farm." 



This little work was written for the instruction of . the 

 horny-handed sons of toil, the small farmers of France, 

 who offered the most stubborn opposition to the measures 

 of the French Government for the reafforestnient of the 

 communal lands. That they should have offered such 

 resistance was only natural, seeing that the very first 

 measure of the Forest Department was necessarily to ex- 

 clude all sheep and cattle from the selected areas. It was 

 hardly to be expected that they would have sufficient 

 insight to recognize that the effect of converting worn 

 out pasture lands into forest would be to enable them to 

 keep more stock, make more manure and grow more 

 grain. Nevertheless in the little book the teaching, 

 which is conducted on the Socratic method by means of 

 a series of dialogues between the teacher and the peasant 

 farmer, is an appeal to the rude horse sense of the latter, 

 who finally acknowledges himself convinced. 



In his impatience of the dictation of one who is not a 

 practical farmer he asserts in the language of his class 

 that "the leaves (of the forest floor) are our only resource 

 to make litter and manure, and it is better to deprive the 

 forests of it than our cultivated fields. Let the woods 

 perish rather than the crops." He cannot at first realize 

 that depriving the forest of its humus is depriving it of 

 the essential conditions of vigorous growth and of its 

 utflity as a reservoir whose waters maintain the lower 

 lands' perennially moist; but he is gradually brought to 

 the recognition of the teacher's axiom that "a country 

 without wood is a house without a roof." 



In this country even the present generation entered 

 upon so vast a woodland inheritance that the question 

 of the exhaustion of our timber supply with its attend 

 ant evils has hardly received serious consideration, 

 the State Legislature of New York is simply trifling with 

 the question; its honorary Forestry Commission is a mere 

 toy, serving to divert the attention of the community 

 from the gravity of the interests involved. 



We do not intend by these remarks to cast reflections 

 upon the State Legislature; some, at least, of our repre- 

 sentatives at Albany who are passively instrumental in 

 allowing the law to become a dead letter for all practical 

 purposes, are animated by the consideration that there is 

 no reasonable security from the prudent appropriation of 

 any moneys that may be voted for forest administration 

 as long as the department shall be controlled and officered 



by men who, whatever their general attainments, have 

 no professional knowledge to guide them. 



And so there is nothing for us but to recur to the sub- 

 ject from time to time, and keep alive the public interest 

 in a problem the attempted solution of which will pro- 

 bably constitute the severest test of the capacity of a re- 

 publican government to deal with great economic ques- 

 tions, which the Governments of the United States has 

 ever been exposed to. 



It is a problem that will never present itself in its true 

 light until we begin to import timber from northern 

 Europe, nor wdl the problem ever present itself in its 

 true dimensions until, urged by necessity, we shall have 

 determined what available materials can be substituted 

 for wood. 



America entering the twentieth century with a popula- 

 tion of a hundred millions, and dependent on the Baltic 

 forests for three-fourths of her timber supply is a picture 

 conducive to serious reflection. 



THE MARKSMAN S HOLIDAY. 



IF there is a god of marksmanship to whose honor gun 

 powder is burned, a saint of the shooter other than 

 good St. Hubert, surely the American Thanksgiving Day 

 ought to be named in his honor on the calendar of saints. 

 The reports in our rifle and trap columns show that the 

 rattle of the rifle and the shotgun beat a close accompany 

 iment to the tattoo of the all-prevalent gobbler drumstick 

 in marking the celebration of the day. Some of the shoot- ' 

 ers were within ear shot of the surf beating on the At- 

 lantic shore, while others looked out from their shooting 

 grounds over the broad expanse of the smooth Pacific. 

 Some fired close to the border of the Dominion, others 

 hugged the other edge of the Republic and found good 

 shooting grounds on the shelly shore of the Gulf. 



A few of the events which came within the knowledge 

 of the all-pervading reporter are recorded in our pages. 

 Hundreds and hundreds of other pleasant little tests of 

 shooting skill were billed, in which the beautiful Novem- 

 ber weather was enjoyed, and a fine appetite worked up 

 for the feast connected with the day's proper observance. 

 These may not appear in print, but they were just as much 

 appreciated and enjoyed as the more formal affairs with 

 their medal and prize accompaniments. 



The day is growing, as is every other one of the few 

 American holidays, into a date for outdoor events. 

 There is always some form of open-air enjoyment fit for 

 the day. Whether that day be the blazing Fourth of J uly 

 or in the nipping Christmastide, sun and crisp frost are 

 equally enjoyable if taken in the right way, and for gen- 

 eral, all-the-y ear-through application the trap-shoot and 

 the test of skill before the butts seem to stand unique 

 among sports. November, with its gray skies and moist 

 atmosphere, is perhaps peculiarly fitted for fun with 

 powder-burning devices, and so it comes that the only off 

 day in the November list is crowded with shoots of all 

 manner of magnitude, making in the aggregate a grand 

 outburst of noisy recognition of the civic holiday and one 

 quite at variance with the ideas of its puritanical origin- 

 ators. ^^^^^^^ 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 a SMALL SLZED rumpus has been raised over the 

 ^a. "coursing" of hares on Long Island by fox-terriers, 

 the hares having been taken from a pen, dropped to the 

 ground in sight of the dogs and quickly killed by them. 

 The purpose of this proceeding was presumably to test 

 the speed of the terriers. The Society for the Preven- 

 tion of Cruelty to Animals interfered and arrested 

 the participants on a charge of cruelty, and a trial 

 in a Long Island court resulted in an acquittal. 

 The qualities of "sport" and "cruelty" are so debatable 

 that much might be said with reason on either side of 

 the question here involved; but most lovers of manly 

 field sports will agree that if in the Long Island fox-ter- 

 rier hare killing there is not very much of "cruelty" there 

 is even less of "sport." 



As a complement of recent notes in the natural history 

 columns of game birds invading the haunts of man, 

 comes a story from Cairo, 111., saying that on Tuesday, 

 Nov. 13, a large deer swam the Ohio River from East 

 Cairo, Ky., ran up the Ohio levee and broke a large plate 

 glass in the Indiana Central Railroad office. All the 

 operators ran out of the office and the deer was killed, 

 j It weighed 2001bs, 



