Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod -and Gun. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 18 94. \ 
Tehms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. A Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
VOL XTJIL— No. 15. 
No. 818 Broadway, New York. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page iii. 
1 Forest and Stream Water Colors 1 
I 
i 
1 
We have prepared as premiums a series of four artistic 
and beautiful reproductions of original water colors, 
painted expressly for the Forest and Stream. The 
subjects are outdoor scenes: 
Jacksnipe Coming la. "He's Got Them" CQuail Shooting). 
Vigilant and Valkyrie. Bass Fishing at Block Island. 
The plates are for frames 14 x 19 in. They are done in 
twelve colors, and are rich in effect. They are furnished 
to old or new subscribers on the following terms: 
Forest and Stream one year and the set of four pictures, $5. 
Forest and Stream 6 months and any two of the pictures, $3. 
Remit by express money order, postal money order, 
or postal note. Make orders payable to 
FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., New York. 
" STOP THE SALE OF GAME." 
The enthusiastic reception accorded to the new plat- 
form plank announced by the Forest and Stream is 
encouraging. Not only have a large number of our 
readers at once seen how much such a change would do 
toward conserving the limited game supply, but many 
dealers have acknowledged that the adoption of such a 
plank would injure their business very slightly or not at 
all. A representative of the farmers has called attention 
to the fact that the abolition of the sale of game would be 
likely to increase the price of some of the products of the 
farmers. Besides all this, there is a considerable class of 
men, engaged in the business of selling game, who 
would actually be glad to drop the traffic, on the ground 
that there is no profit in it. One of these has written to 
us from a large city, under a recent date, as follows: 
I am engaged in the retail trade in poultry and game in one of the 
oldest established firms in , and have worked there about two 
years, and as I am an enthusiastic sportsman myself, I would like to 
say a few words in regard to your platform plank on "stop the sale of 
game." 
Probably most sportsmen think that there is an enormous profit in 
retailing game to hotels and private customers, but if they could see 
the quantity of game— birds and animals— which goes to waste, they 
might not think it so profitable after all. During the open season 
thousands of partridges, prairie chickens, quail and ducks are shipped 
to us from all points, and, of course, when the season closes we have 
any quantity left over in our freezer, and this frozen game is next year 
worth practically nothing, and so the loss on it takes away most of 
the profit from what was sold the year before. 
Then as to venison. There never was a cent made in retailing 
venison and never will be, but the rich people and the hotel men must 
have it, and of course, that demand must be supplied. In a lot of ten 
or twelve saddles there are certain to be two or more which are shot, 
and so utterly worthless, and these have to be thrown away. 
Only the other day I was talking to a man who has handled game in 
this way for the past twenty years or more, and he agreed with me 
that on the whole there is very little profit in the business. 
As I said before, however, the club men and rich gourmands must 
and will have it. I remember very well that a month or two ago a 
wealthy customer came into our store and asked for a pair of part- 
ridges, saying that he wanted "none of your shot birds; give me a pair 
of trapped ones." 
It is not the poor fellows who sell a few birds now and then that 
must be reasoned with, but the men who can afford and are willing to 
pay for those luxuries. I wish the sale of game could be stopped, 
although it may seem strange for me to say it. 
This testimony is very interesting, and it is by no means 
the only letter that we have received on the point. It 
comes back to the old question, so often insisted on, that 
influence ought to be brought on the consumers of game 
as well as on the middlemen, through whose hands it 
passes. 
But there is another view of the matter which will 
occur to many of our readers and indeed has been often 
mentioned, and this is the killing of big bags by men who 
have the opportunity, and yet who would never think of 
selling their game. Probably almost every man who 
reads Forest and Stream is acquainted with some such 
men, good fellows, good sportsmen, who on the whole 
have right ideas about preservation of game and about 
shooting, but who when the opportunity occurs to kill 
100 or 150 birds in a day, find it impossible to stop shoot- 
ing. If such men— men who are familiar with the 
conditions governing this whole subject; men who should 
exercise self-restraint and hold their hands because they 
know what this great destruction means — if such men 
will not live up to the principles which they profess and 
advocate, can we expect that those who make their living 
partly by the sale of game, or that those who know 
nothing about the importance of preserving game, but 
know only that they like to eat it, should give up the 
gratification of their appetites? 
"We can hardly expect from others acts of self-sacrifice 
which we are unwilling to perform, and until sportsmen 
mend their ways and cease to uselessly destroy fish and 
game, their precepts can not convert many. 
WOMAN OUT OF DOORS. 
It is not so many years ago since in the minds of the 
majority of the better class of the community there was 
something disgraceful about the recreation of outdoor 
sports. Then the man who went shooting or fishing was 
thought to be shiftless, worthless, and very likely given 
to drink. If, notwithstanding his pursuits, he was a 
reputable member of the community and was successful in 
business or professional life, he was yet regarded as an 
exception to the rule and as probably a little bit off his 
mental balance. Men who were timid about the good 
opinion of their fellows kept their excursions for birds or 
fish a secret, and when they started out carefully hid their 
rods and guns. In those days a woman seen abroad with 
gun or fishing rod would have had small chance of escap- 
ing arrest as a lunatic. Her reputation would have been 
gone. The' ideal woman of those days was weak, languid 
and prone to vapors; she was expected to weep at the 
sight of a dead bird and to faint at the discharge of a gun. 
We have got beyond those days now. The times have 
changed; the world moves, though perhaps it moves but 
slowly. Gradually field sports for men came to take their 
proper place as legitimate [and wholesome recreations. 
It was no longer disgraceful for a man to go shooting or 
fishing. Soon after this, began woman's interest in these 
sports; at first very mildly with croquet and archery, and 
then passing on to tennis and bicycling, until now it is no 
unusual thing to see a woman fishing a stream, following 
the dogs, or sailing a yacht, and twenty years hence, those 
of us who are left alive, will look back with hearty 
amusement at the comments that are made to-day on 
women in the field. 
There are no good reasons why there should not be as 
many and as good sportswomen as there are sportsmen. 
No reasons why the wife or sister should not love and 
share in the free, bracing outdoor fife, the splendid exer- 
cise which sends the warm blood bounding through the 
veins, the changing charm of fields and woods, the series 
of pictures offered by the working dogs. Physically she 
is strong enough to handle a rod or a gun, or the boat's 
tiller, and with training, to do these things long enough 
and well enough to bear her part in the field. 
Yet as all men do not care to shoot or to fish, or to sail 
a boat, so there are women who care for none of these 
things, but who take pleasure in being out of doors and in 
sharing the society and the surroundings of the sports- 
man, even though they may not care for the prize that he 
strives for. Such a woman enjoys watching the working 
of the dogs and the shooting done by husband or brother, 
or loves to accompany him along the brook or on the 
lake. Yet without some special interest for herself, she 
may sometimes find it a little dull to walk alone and un- 
employed around a swamp, while her companion passes 
through it, himself and dogs hidden from view. 
For such women there are still many outdoor occu- 
pations — enough to satisfy the most exacting. There are 
sketching, photography, and half a dozen branches of 
natural history, all of which may be followed with inter- 
est and profit. Of these natural history studies, one of the 
most attractive and easily pursued is botany. To many 
people this word calls up only a meaningless jumble of 
long Latin names, of orders, families, genera and species; 
terms which have to them no meaning and which sound 
very alarming. But if one can only start aright, it is sur- 
prising how little technical knowledge is needed to make 
the study of botany fascinating even to one who knows 
nothing of it. 
Those unfortunates who are born and bred in cities, 
and whose only ideas of country life are gathered from a 
few weeks of summer spent on hotel piazzas by sea-shore 
or mountains, have no conception of the beauties lying 
about them waiting to be discovered, and even the girl 
who resides in the country usually fails to see most of the 
beauties of her surroundings. While it is true that many 
of the most beautiful and rarest flowers are hidden in 
wood or swamp, it is also true that the dusty roadsides 
between which she walks or drives each day are full of 
countless attractions if she will look for them. There 
grow, though perhaps hidden under a coating of dust * the 
delicate soft circles of the wild carrot, the tall purple 
clusters of the iron weed, and the delicate blossoms of the 
oxalis; these and countless other flowers line the dustiest 
and dullest country highway, and may be gathered and 
identified by the laziest and most superficial botanist. 
There is a touch of genius about Mrs. Dana's book, 
"How to Know Wild Flowers," for, while from the scien- 
tific point of view its arrangements and instructions are 
highly artificial, this very artificiality enables a person 
altogether ignorant of botany to know the common plants 
which she finds in fields and forest provided she can read 
and understand the English language. To a woman hav- 
ing this interest, who takes her course over field and 
meadow, and by the swamp and through the wood, what 
a treasure house is opened. With her book in her hand, 
her specimen basket hung over her shoulder, and her eyes 
keenly on the watch for new flowers, every step will 
reveal some novel shape or color, and each tramp will 
give her new friends in the lovely world of flowers. 
Instead of sitting lonely on the hillside, listlessly watching 
the clouds and listening to the whistles and calls, and the 
crashing of the twigs in the swamp below her, she will 
be on a hunt of her own, and when she meets her com- 
panion at the end of the swamp, he will listen as inter- 
estedly to the story of the plants that she has found, as 
she to his account of how the old dog trailed and pointed 
the plump partridge which lies at her feet. 
THE SPORTSMAN'S EXPOSITION. 
Tbe sportsman's exposition to be held in this city next 
May promises to be successful, but just how great this 
measure of success will be cannot be told' until the plans 
of the directors shall have been decided on and announced. 
From the known character of these directors it may be 
assumed that their policy will be a broad one, but it is 
important that it should be decided on and made public 
with as little delay as possible. Whatever is determined, 
there will of course be a good exhibition of arms and 
implements, but much more than this is required if a full 
and unqualified success is to be reached, if all who are 
interested in American sport are to be proud of the exposi- 
tion as a whole. 
The question of success or non-success will depend 
largely on the character imparted to the exhibition. If 
it is a genuine sportsman's exposition it will be success- 
ful. If it is merely a series of displays of the goods sold 
by the exhibitors, it is not likely to attract much atten- 
tion, and will fail of the good which it ought to do. 
To make this exposition an entire success it must have 
an educational character, and must also excite the popu- 
lar interest, that is the interest of the men, women and 
children who are now not especially interested in any 
form of sport. Any person who will take the trouble to 
walk through the large gun and fishing tackle stores of 
any of our important cities can there see all the imple- 
ments used by sportsmen in the field, and such a person 
will not care to visit the proposed exposition and pay an 
entrance fee merely to see the same things that he can 
see in the stores. Such an exposition should have an 
historical character and show the evolution of various 
sportsmen's implements; a mechanical side with exhibi- 
tions of the manufacture of particular articles, and a com- 
parative side, in which comparisons should be instituted 
between the implements of America and of European 
countries. Besides this, trophies of sport should be gath- 
ered from all lands, pictures should be collected and gen- 
erally all the attractions possible should be brought to- 
gether to interest the public at large. 
No doubt the committee in charge of the matter have 
already put themselves in communication with the man- 
ufacturers and dealers in this country, but this is not 
enough. Amateur sportsmen in this country and in 
Europe should be interested in the matter, and European 
exhibitors be communicated with and personally inter- 
ested. The co-operation of all such men is necessary to 
bring together collections such as will interest and educate 
the public. 
The work of preparing for an exhibition such as should 
be held in New York is very considerable, and the time in 
which to accomplish this work is short. The undertaking 
must then be pushed and active measures taken to bring 
it to a successful issue. No time must be wasted if the 
work which faces the promoters is to be done. 
