Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Tkbms, $4 A Yv.Mi. 10 r-TS. A Copy. I 

 Six Months, $2. ( 



NEW YORK, JUNE 22, 1893. 



( VOL. XL.— No. 25. 



I No. 318 BKOADmT, New Yobk. 



CONTE^fTS. 



EditoriaL 



Live Birds and Artificial Targets 

 Twenty Years of Lead Keels. 

 Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



The Country Club's Bull's Head 



Breakfast. 

 A Night Adventure on the Levee- 



Natural History. 



Peccaries. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



Instances of Vitality. 

 Maine's Moose for the Fair. 

 Chicago and the West. 



Sea and River Fishing-. 



Greenwood Lake. 



Our Boston News Budget. 



Connecticut Black Bass. 



A New Hampshire Curiosity. 



With the 'Al. Foster" to the 



Fishing Banks. 

 Forest and Stream at the 



World's Fair. 

 American Fisheries Society. 

 Angling Notes. 



Forest aud Stream Fishing 

 Postals. 



The Kennel. 



Where is the Cocker as a Work- 

 ing Spaniel. 

 Our Bvuldog Pictures. 

 Spaniel Trials 



U. S. Field Trials Derby Entries. 



New Jersey Kennel League. 



Dog Chat. 



Kennel Notes. 



Answers to Correspondents. 



Yachting. 



The 21ft. Trophy. 

 The Cup Defenders. 

 New York Y. 0. Regatta. 

 June Regattas. 

 News Notes. 



Canoeing. 



New York C. C. Regatta. 

 Atlantic Division Meet. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



International Columbian Rifle 

 Shoot. 



Rifle Notes. 

 Trap Shooting. 



Connecticut League. 



New York State Annual. 



Drivers and Twisters. 

 Answers to Queries. 



J^or Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page 556. 



LIVE BIRDS AND ARTIFICIAL TARGETS. 



One of tlie chief prizes competed for at the annual 

 tournament in New York State is the Dean Eichmond 

 trophy, a handsome piece of silver valued at $1,150. This 

 was presented to the Association years ago, when there 

 were no artificial birds to shoot at, and the original con- 

 ditions of live bird shooting still govern the comx^etition. 

 Of late years the tournament managers have found diffi- 

 culty in procuring birds for tom-nament purposes, and in 

 addition to this trouble, it is generally conceded that live 

 bird shooting in sweltering summer weather is not a 

 high grade of competition. In the Rochester meeting 

 last week a proposition was broached to alter the rules of 

 the Dean Richmond competition by substituting artificial 

 targets for live birds. The proposition was based upon 

 the contention that the shooting of live birds at the trap 

 is a sport which involves cruelty. The proposal provoked 

 opposition and was tabled for consideration a year hence. 



It is easily enough demonstrated that the trap-shoot- 

 ing of pigeons is a cruel practice, provided the argument 

 is advanced from the standpoint of one who beUeves that 

 all shootmg of game is cruel. But he who attempts to 

 show that it is cruel to kill pigeons at the trap while 

 it is not cruel to kill quail ia the field, has a task in. 

 dialectics which it would require more than average 

 skiU to accomplish. The cruelty of pigeon shooting is 

 one of those topics about which men may argue for 

 hours and days and part again each more set in his be- 

 lief than before. There is little likehhood that prolonged 

 discussion would have converted either side at Rochester 

 the other day. 



Quite aside from any consideration of the question of 

 cruelty or no cruelty, there is some reason for believing 

 that the Dean Richmond competition would command 

 i more interest and prove a greater success if it were con- 

 verted into a match shot under modern conditions. The 

 sport of trap-shooting in this coimtiy owes its develop- 

 ment to the substitution of artificial targets for five birds. 

 The clays have brought the sport within the means of the 

 multitude, within the opportunities of the public as to 

 expenditure of time and monej^. Nor is there any gain- 

 saying that the sport of shooting artificial targets has been 

 taken up as a pastmie by many scores of shooters who 

 would have found no pleasure in five-bird shooting 

 at the trap. The typical modern trap-shooter, the man 

 who shoots for the fun there is in it, is not a 

 live bird shooter, but an artificial target shooter. The 

 success of the average toiirnament, like that just held at 

 Rochester, dej)ends on the artificial target shooters. They 

 are the host. Nine of every ten trap-shooters in New 

 York State to-day are target shooters. Does any one 

 imagine that if the donor of the Dean Richmond trophy 

 had presented it to the Association this year, designing it 

 for the real good of the organization, it would have been 

 provided for any other than artificial target competition? 

 Apart, then from the "cruelty" consideration and as a 

 business expedient, might it not be worth while trying 

 the experiment, for one year at least, of a Dean Richmond 

 competition at the artificial targets? 



TRUSTEES OF PUBLIC RESERVATIONS. 



The whole country has been roused to righteous wrath 

 by the reports of the desecration wrought at Gettysburg 

 by a vandalistic railroad company. It is to the lasting 

 disgrace of the people of this country that measures have 

 not been taken long since to keep sacred, as it should be 

 kept sacred, this blood-consecrated field. But vandal- 

 devastated Gettysburg is only one of scores and hundreds 

 of localities, which, because of their historic associations 

 or their natural beauty, should have been set apart to be 

 preserved forever as public possessions for use and 

 enjoyment and inspiration and uplifting. For the most 

 part opportunities for acquiring such sites have now 

 passed by, but there is yet abundant reward awaiting 

 public-spirited action. 



Already, it is true, something has been done. The 

 National Government has set apart national parks; State 

 authorities have made similar provisions, although as a 

 rule action has been delayed, as with the Adirondacks 

 of New York, until individuals and clubs have made 

 sure of the most desirable tracts; and town and munici- 

 pal authorities have, in repeated instances, shown pub- 

 lic spirit in the same field. But the fact remains that 

 as a people we are culpably indifferent on this subject, 

 and have permitted golden opportunities to pass un- 

 heeded. There are evidences of changing sentiment, not 

 the least encouraging among them being a Massachusetts 

 institution, recently established, known as the Trustees 

 of Public Reservations. The province of the Trustees is 

 to hold and preserve sites of historic interest and spots of 

 beautiful scenery. The Board was established in 1891 

 and grew out of the public-spirited suggestions of mem- 

 bers of the Appalachian Mountain Club, of Boston. The 

 history of the movement is worthy of careful study, for 

 the example set by Massachusetts is one which may well 

 be followed by every State which possesses sites worthy 

 of preservation for the people. 



In May, 1890, on call of the club, a meeting was held in 

 Boston, to consider a plan for the preservation of fine 

 natural scenes and historical sites. The scheme proposed 

 and afterward adopted was this: 



1. The establishment of a Board of Trustees. 



2. The Trustees to be empowered to acquire by gift from individuals 

 or bodies by subscribers, parcels of real estate possessing natura 

 beauty or historical interest, and to hold the same, together with 

 funds for the maintenance thereof, free of all taxes. 



3. The Trustees to be required to open to the public, under suitable 

 regulations, all such parcels of their real estate as lie within the limits 

 of towns and cities which may provide police protection for the same. 



4. The Trustees to be prohibited from conveying real estate once ac- 

 cepted by them, except to towns and cities for public uses. 



A bill embodying this plan was submitted in the Legis- 

 lature in the following session, and became a law, desig- 

 nating the members of the Board. No sooner was the 

 organization of the Board made public than responses 

 began to come in fi-om individuals who tendered tracts of 

 land, the first one coming from a lady of Stoneham, who 

 profl:ered a wood of twenty acres in that town, and it 

 was accepted. Numerous suggestions were made recom- 

 mending that the trustees shoidd acquire designated sites, 

 but to these the Board rei^lied: 



This Board does not possess either the money or the authority to 

 enable it to snatch real estate out of the hands of anybody. Like the 

 trustees of a public art museum, this Board stands ready to under- 

 take the care of such precious things as may be placed in its charge. 

 It exists "to facilitate the preservation of beautiful and historical 

 places in Massachusetts" by providing an efficient and permanent 

 organization through which individuals and bodies of subscribers may 

 accomplish their several desu'es. 



It should not be assumed that the Massachusetts Trus- 

 tees of Public Reservations have been content to seiwe 

 merely as passive holders of the properties entrusted to 

 their care. They have undertaken in various ways to 

 stimulate public interest and sympathy to the end that 

 the mountain tops of the interior, the cliffs and beaches of 

 the seashore, and scenes of special beauty here and there, 

 aU of which are so rapidly passing into control of private 

 owners, may be rescued or redeemed for the public. To 

 this end they have enlisted the services of Mr. J. B. Har- 

 rison, well known for his efficient work in behalf of the 

 Niagara Falls reservation and more recently of the New 

 Hampshire forests. The results of Mr. Harrison's inves- 

 tigations have been embodied in a report, which is so full 

 of suggestiveness that we shall refer to it at length here- 

 after. 



The successful establishment of this unique Massachu- 

 setts institution clearly shows a practical way to the pub- 

 lic preservation of desirable localities in every part of the 

 land. There should be a board of trustees of public 



reservation in every State of the Union. Its establish- 

 ment would mean no strike on the Treasury, no increase 

 in appropriation bills. It would cost the State absolutely 

 nothing; it would render the State a service of inestim- 

 able value. 



TWENTY YEARS OF - LEAD KEELS. 



The success of the extreme fin-keel as opposed to the 

 semi-fin type is as yet problematical in the larger classes, 

 and while there is much in favor of the former, it is still 

 a question whether Pilgrim or the new Paine boat will 

 repeat the successes of Wenonah and El Chico. From 

 what has been seen, however, of the extreme ballast fin, 

 it is most probable that a new and very fast type of sail- 

 ing yacht has been developed, in which the principle of 

 low ballast has been carried to a point never dreamed of 

 at the time of its first inception. 



The twenty years between 1873 and 1893 is a most inter- 

 esting epoch in yachting, as it has witnessed the develop- 

 ment of the lead keel from the condition of an almost 

 immaterial adjunct, timidly introduced as an experiment, 

 to that of the controling factor of yacht designing. 



Both the simple lead keel and the bulb or ballast fin are 

 not inventions but growths, the crude idea of each recur- 

 ring again and again as we go backward in yachting 

 history, tested with more or less discouraging results by 

 one after another, until the right man at last brings suc- 

 cess out of failure. 



It was in 1873, after numerous preliminary trials with 

 iron or lead outside the keel in small quantities, that the 

 famous 20-tonner Vanessa was built by Hatcher with a 

 lead keel of sufficiept size to test the value of the then 

 new principle. The success of Vanessa as a racer finally 

 decided the question, and from that date onward the lead 

 keel increased in size and importance until, in the last 

 yachts built mider the tonnage rule, the breadth of the 

 keel itself had become abnormally great in proportion to 

 the narrow beam of the hull, while the weight of lead 

 was as much as double that of the entire hull, rig and 

 equipment. 



Just at the time when this development had reached its 

 limit a number of changes took place; the old tonnage 

 rule was abandoned, the international races of 1885-6-7 

 in American waters resulted in the defeat of the heavy 

 displacement craft, and a general exchange of ideas be- 

 tween the two nations followed. The result was the 

 moderate cutter of 1888 to 1890, Dragon, Vreda, Yarana 

 and Minerva on the one side and the American 40-footers 

 on the other. 



The rapid changes in the direction of less displace- 

 ment with a maximum of power and lateral resistance 

 tended of themselves in the direction of the fin-keel, and 

 the various stages of reduced deadwood in existing craft, 

 and of a wide, shoal hull with a lead fin equivalent to 

 a fixed centerboard, made easy the final step to the con- 

 centration of all the weight on the end of the lever in 

 the form of a metal plate fin with its leaden bulb or 

 cigar. 



In its original form the lead keel involved the dis- 

 posal of a very great weight at the end of a short lever, 

 as in Genesta, with some seventy tons carried on a max- 

 imum draft of about 13ft. In its most recent form the 

 weight is greatly diminished while the lever is propor- 

 tionately lengthened, the new Pilgrim carrying only 

 twenty tons of lead, but on a draft of 22ft. 



A change so radical and striking as this could hardly fail 

 to exert a marked infiuence on every detail of yacht design- 

 ing and construction, and even the most experienced 

 yachtsmen are content to await the outcome of this sea- 

 son's races before attempting to predict the future of the 

 fin-keel type and of yacht racing. 



Our Boston correspondent sends us a gruesome story of 

 the capture of moose for Maine's exhibit in the World's 

 Fair. If the circumstances were as related it would ap- 

 pear that the only decent thing left for the agents to do 

 would have been to buy the carcases and say nothing 

 about it. No credit can come to Maine by the exhibition 

 of these spoils of a spring-time atrocity in her moose for- 

 ests; the State might better go without any moose show 

 at aU. 



Attention is called again to the fact that the two vol- 

 umes begin with the first- issues in January and July 

 respectively. The issue of next week will be the last 

 number of Vol. XXXIX. It will also mark the comple- 

 tion of twenty years since the establishment of this jour- 

 nal in 1873. 



