OOT. 17, 1896.] 
FOREST^ AND STREAM, 
S09 
SENTIMENT IN MINNESOTA. 
State op Minnesota Board of Game and Fish Com- 
missioners, Sfc. Paul, Minu., Oct. 1— Editor Forest and 
Streavi: There are some amendments to our game laws 
that we hope to have passed at the next session of our 
Legislature, and one of them will be to stop the sale of 
all game, and brook trout and black bass fish. We be- 
lieve this is the essence of game protection, and the 
Forest and Stream has always aided us in our efforts in 
this respect. Of course, we will have to fight, but this is 
the only way we will ever preserve our game, because as 
long as there is something in it in the way of money men 
will be tempted to go out and kill it. The effect of our 
law last winter, in stopping the transportation of venison 
by any common carrier, commission man or sale market, 
had a wonderful effect, and not 35 per cent, of the veni- 
son was killed in Minnesota last year that was killed in 
'94 and previous years, and it was all on account of their 
not being able to ship it for sale to any great extent. 
Of course, they avoided the law in some respects, as it 
is almost impossible to stop it in every case. The Minne- 
sota transportation law was carried up to the Supreme 
Court on a test last fall, mention of which was made in 
the Forest and Stream, and it was decided in our favor. 
The Supreme Court decided that the Legislature had the 
right to say what should become of the game of the 
State, and all the decisions we have ever gotten from our 
Supreme Court have been along the same line; so if we 
get legislation to stop the sale of game altogether, it will 
surely be declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. 
We believe we have more game in Minnesota at the 
present time than has been in the State for a good many 
years, and that people are taking a deeper interest than 
ever before in the matter. Numerous clubs have been 
formed all over the State to aid the Game and Fish Com- 
mission in enforcing the law and creating public senti- 
ment, and this movement has had great effect. People 
look upon the game and fish of our State as worth some- 
thing in dollars and cents, and this is a vital matter with 
people when anything touches their pocketbooks. We 
have noticed the effect of it this year in so many men 
commg from other States to fish and hunt in Minnesota. 
They all leave a great deal of money in our State, which 
18 just so much richer by the transaction. We welcome 
everybody to come and fish and hunt here, but they must 
obey our law the same as our own citizens. We limit the 
amount of game that can be kUled and the catch each 
day, and we allow no game to be taken out of the State. 
It this policy IS carried out in the future, we believe we 
will have game and fish in Minnesota for all time to 
come, 
Thanking the Forest and Stream for the great assist- 
ance you have given the Game and Fish Commission, and 
, the cause of game and fish protection all over the coun- 
try, I remain yours very truly, 
Sam. F. Fullerton, Executive Agent. 
HUNTING RIFLES AND CALIBERS, 
Toledo, O., Oct. 9.— Editor Forest and Stream: I have 
been a very interested reader of the discussion which has 
been going on in the columns of your paper upon the 
subject of hunting rifles, and thinking that a little experi- 
ment which I recently tried might be of interest to others, 
I write concerning it. 
I have used rifles of the .33-40, .38-55, .40 65 and .44-40 
calibers, and as an all-round gun for use on game from 
the size of a deer down I like the latter best. 
In testing the. 33 40 and the, 44-40 together I found that 
with both guns sighted to shoot center at 100yds. each 
shot under about as much as the other at SOOyds., so that 
in elevation there was practically no choice between 
them. However, the .33 40 had by far the greater pene- 
tration. Now, the bullets commonly used in the .44-40 
cartridge are of pure lead and flatten out very easily upon 
striking any hard substance, and desiring to see if the 
penetrating powers of this cartridge could not be im- 
proved by hardening the bullet, I cast some containing 
about one-tenth tin, and then to test the matter I fired 
first a lead and then a hardened bullet into a seasoned 
chestnut post 6in, in diameter. 
The hardened bullet went clear through the post and 
out its way cleanly, but the lead bullet only penetrated 
about 3in., and when recovered was a flat, thin piece of 
lead nearly lin. in diameter, and the wood was a good 
deal slivered for a considerable distance each side of the 
track of the bullet. 
I have never used hardened bullets in a .44-40 on game 
but from having seen what it will do on game with a lead 
bullet, and then in seeing how greatly the penetration 
can be increased by hardening the bullet, I am inclined to 
think that very few of the latter bullets would fail to go 
through a deer at any distance up to 300yds. Next month 
I am going out to look for a deer, and hope to give the 
matter a practical test. Autokee. 
Indians and Game in Jackson's Hole. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
On my way to Jackson's Hole this fall I saw Bannock 
Pete with a party of eight Indians, He was extremely 
happy, saying, "Mebbe so come Ist of September killum 
elk." Four days after tbeir arrival nine residents of the 
Hole, with Constable Manning at their head, arrested five 
Indians, three not showing up, and allowed old Pete with 
the squaw to return to the reservation. The five Indians 
were taken to Evanston and a penalty of thirty days 
apiece was imposed for hunting without a license. 
During their four days' sojourn in the Hole they had 
killed eighteen elk. In view of this slaughter and the 
abundance of game this season, it is but just to the 
residents of Jackson to allow their claim that the per- 
formance of last year was entirely justifiable. 
J. J. Nall, 
Quail in an Illinois City. 
Macomb, 111,, Oct. Q— Editor Forest and Stream: A fino 
bevy of quail made their appearance in the Court House 
yard to-day in this city. They took refuge in the tops of 
the large elms in the yard. The boys got after them with 
their little BB rifles and shot every one of them. Evi- 
dently they had got lost and bewildered or they never 
would have come here, as this city has a population of 
6,000, and the Court House yard is surrounded with busi- 
ness houses. W. O. Blaisdell. 
'Texas Game Notes. 
Petty, Tex., Oct. 4. — The quail crop in this section is 
larger than usual. In walking a mile or so, I flushed two 
large coveys of a.bout twenty-five birds each. The wea- 
ther has been favorable to nestmg and brooding this 
season, as in wet seasons the chigres are a very danger- 
ous foe to the young chicks. 
The scarcity of water during the long dry spell has 
caused some of the birds to migrate to the watercourses, 
but the recent rains have replenished the water supply 
and the birds are returning to the prairie again. The 
present crop of young birds is about grown, and the birds 
are in good condition apparently. 
Shooting will be fine by the 15fch of this month, when 
nearly all the cornstalks will be out of the way . 
.The cold snap about Sept. 27 brought a considerable 
flight of waterfowl. A good many teal were seen in the 
pools and ponds, but very few were shot that I heard of; 
there were also several large bunches of geese seen to 
pass over on their southward journey to the Gulf. The 
indications are good for another cold snap in a few days, 
when the flight will be renewed. 
From Grand Saline, Tex., comes the report that the 
quail crop this year is good; the young ones are about 
grown, and seem to be strong on the wing. The duck 
season has about commenced; several have been killed 
already. The snipe marsh is not in good condition, as 
there has not been rain enough to cause them to stop; it 
is rather too early yet for a flight of jacksnipe. 
We hope to get plenty of rain soon, and if so we will 
have good shooting of both ducks and jacksnipe from 
Nov. 1 to 15. Provo. 
The .303 Smokeless. 
• 
Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 1.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have lately returned from a hunting trip in Wyoming, 
and before setting out purchased a Savage repeating rifle, 
.303cal, I had no doubt as to its trajectory and penetra- 
tion, but feared the shock of the small bullet would not 
be sufficient for big game. My first trial was at a bull elk, . 
80yds. off. The ball, a metal patch with soft nose, struck 
him through the foreshoulder, ranged up and back, pen- 
etrating the backbone, and stopped just under the skin 
on the opposite side. Instead of making a small hole at 
entrance and a large one near the exit, the place of 
entering was large enough to thrust my thumb in, and it 
was even larger inside. The bull was dropped flat in his 
tracks, and never got up. My next was at a buck ante- 
lope, and was a very lucky shot. I shot from an elevation 
of about 100ft. at the buck on a slow trot. I made no 
allowance for drop, but shot point blank in that respect, 
only allowing 1ft. in front. At the report he dropped 
dead. I paced the distance, with my brother following, 
and it was 480 paces. The antelope was a splendid speci- 
men, and shot directly behind the foreshoulder, and 
showed the same large bullet hole and perforation as the 
elk at the short range. This may be interesting to your 
readers, as it is practice, not theory. C. P. S. 
Geese at Sweetwater Lake, North Dakota. 
J, E. N. writes of a goose-shooting trip to Sweetwater 
Lake, in North Dakota. The route was from Langsdon 
over the prairie, twenty- two miles. "Soon after leaving 
our camping place we noticed thousands of geese feeding 
on all sides, and we wasted some time in trying to get a 
■shot. An hour later the lake came in sight, with geese 
everywhere roaming, screeching and flapping their 
wings as only thousands of geese do congregated on a 
sheet of shallow water one mile square. Our shooting 
started during the afternoon, but not until next morning 
did the guns get heated up to anything like full working 
temperature. I did not keep the individual score, but the 
aggregate bag after six days' shooting consisted of 353 
geese, 60 ducks, 5 chickens and some rabbits. The 
■weather during the week was most disagreeable and very 
much against our shooting. We had a wagon come to 
meet us to convey our game, and the return trip over the 
prairie was uneventful. Excepting six deer, nothing was 
encountered." 
THE SCIENTIST SPEAKS. 
I KNOW all the electrical and mechanical lore 
or Roentgen's rays, Tesla's oscillator, and more, 
Even some things scientists must not tell; 
But, best of all, I know (and treasure well) 
OI a brook which runs where the crickets smg, 
And the pool where the black basa is the kiag. 
W. H. B. 
FARMERS AND THE TROUT LAW. 
A FRIEND has sent me two editorial clippings from the 
New York Farmer, and asks me to say in Forest and 
Stream what I think of them. This I cannot do, for if I 
should say all I thought Forest and Stream would not 
print it. The articles are so irrational, illogical and pre- 
judiced that to any one who really understands the sub- 
ject of which they treat they contain their own answer, 
which is, that they are based upon an unintelligent knowl- 
edge of the objects of the game law complained of and 
what has caused it to become a law of the State. 
The articles seem to be an attack upon what the writer 
terms "the cranks who preside over our State fisheries" 
for the passage of laws to which he objects. From my 
knowledge of the Commissioners, I seriously doubt if any 
one of them would dignify the articles with a reply of 
any sort. They do not make the laws ahd are not respon- 
sible for their passage, except as they may recommend 
certain measures and oppose others (a privilege granted 
to every citizen in the State as weU as to the Commission- 
ers), which their official experience teaches them are best 
to advocate or combat, and in their capacity of advisers 
they are far more competent to make suggestions, from 
the very nature of their official positions, as to what the 
laws should provide than one who shows his utter ignor- 
ance of the subject and his unfitness to write of it without 
prejudice, when he speaks of "the Fish Commissioners, 
who think it high treason for any one but a sport to cap- 
ture such a specimen" — referring to a fish. 
The tenor of the whole article makes it read like a 
grand-stand play on the part, of some interested party to 
capture the farmer for some purpose or another, but I be- 
lieve the farmers are much too intelligent to be fooled by 
any such gold brick game; fori must assume that the very 
small number of farmers who could in any .way be 
affected by the statute complained of have no desire to 
wipe out a law which would result in the extinction of a 
food product which in the seeking by the people is the 
means of healthful recreation to thousands. But here is 
the article to speak for itself under 
A Law that Greatly Injures the Farmer. 
There are times when brook trout sell readily in the New York 
market for prices ranging from 50 cents to $1 per pound. In many 
parts of the State, especially in counties like Delaware, where springs 
abound, trout could be artiBcially propagated and grown for market 
purposes, and the business could be made to yield a desirable addi- 
tion to the farmer's revenue. But he cannot do this business under 
the existing laws. He may build his pond and, by stealth, may stock 
it, but he cannot take the flsh from it save by hook and Una, though 
the pond is his own, and the flah are as much his own property as the 
fowls in his poultry yard or the cattle on the hillsides. No other 
human being has any right to them, no one else may catch them. The 
law forbids him to take them with a net or by drawing oil the water 
so it destroys a possibly lucrative business. But if he were allowed 
to catch them he must keep them at home or throw them away. 
Parties in the city might and probably would be glad to pay him $1 a 
pound for them, but the law steps in and says emphatically "No." 
In order that our readers may see the odious character of the law, 
we transcribe Section 109 of the game Law. [Here is pi-inted the law 
which forbids the transportation of trout of any kind unless the flsh 
are accompanied by their owner.] 
There you have it. The city fisherman may come up in the moun- 
tains for a day's fishing and in most cases he is welcomed. When he 
has filled his creel he may give it to the expressman on the train on 
which he himself returns or he may carry it with him undisturbed by 
the law. When he gets the flsh to the city he may sell them, eat them 
or throw them into the sewer. On the other hand, the farmer may 
catch his own trout, not from public streams, but from his private 
pond, but he cannot send them nor may the express company carry 
them for him. It does not need a profound intellect to see that such 
Jaws are outrages, that they are tyrannical and unjust. The instance 
quoted is only one of a multitude of phases of the law which must be 
mitigated. The trout in a private pond are the property of the 
owner and he has a moral right to catch them when he pleases, eat 
them when he pleases or send them where he pleases, unhampered by 
the law. That is obvious to any one with a spoonful of brains. 
The conditions described in this bid for the farmer's 
support are, aside from the quoted law, it seems to me, 
wholly imaginary, for I do not believe there is a farmer 
in the State who can, as an adjunct to his farming, build 
a trout pond, rear trout artificially, feed them till they 
reach a marketable size and make a dollar at the busi- 
ness, provided the statute complained of was wiped from 
the books. 
It has been tried by trained fishculturists who have 
given their entire attention to it, and as one expressed it, 
he hauled his food for the fish to his ponds in a two-horse 
wagon and carried his trout to market in a basket on his 
arm. There are a number of successful fish farms in oper- 
ation in this country, but they are not a side issue to rais- 
ing wheat and corn, and they are under the direction of 
competent fish breeders trained to the business, who de- 
vote all their energies to ftie work of fish rearing. 
I am not sure that any one of them, even under the 
most favorable conditions of water, temperature, situa- 
tion, and natural food, would be successful financially if 
they aimed only to raise trout for the table, to be sold 
in the open market. The chief objects of these fish farms 
are to furnish impregnated ova, fish fry, yearlings or older 
fish for stocking or restocking other waters, but this re- 
quires more skill and more training than it does to plant 
a hill of beans. If a farmer has a natural trout pond, 
all his very, very own, which is self-sustaining, and 
he desires to dispose of surplus fish, he finds the best 
market for the fish at his own door. Not to the 
"sport" mentioned, for sports are gamblers and prize 
fighters— and I never heard of one of these being 
an angler — but to the sportsman from the city or the 
country (is it not funny that some people have an idea 
that all sportsmen come from the cities?) who will pay a 
good price for fishing a wild trout pond; or, if the farmer 
prefers to catch his own fish and then sell them, he will 
find a better market and deliver them in a better condi- 
tion in his market town. 
One dollar a pound for trout is vary alluring to some 
people when they see it in type a long way from the 
market place, but as yet there are no free pneumatic 
tubes by which trout can be shot to markets, and ice and 
express charges make a hole in the price of each pound. 
Furthermore, the extremely high prices given for brook 
trout in the New York market are given for live fish. A 
writer upon culinary topics in a recent issue of a New 
York city newspaper said: "The black bass, brook trout 
and lake trout cannot be found in their best condition in 
our markets because they lose flavor in every hour they 
are out of their native waters. To be properly served 
they must be cooked in the simplest manner as soon as 
they are caught, and their fine flavor left undisguised by 
sauce of any kind." « 
If I were a farmer who desired to try the experiment of 
a private fish hatchery on a private trout pond in rearing 
fish for city tables, I would hesitate about accepting advice 
from one who intimated that the first thing to do after 
building the pond is to break a law of the State and rob 
the people before I could commence business. 
The people of the State are taxed that the public trout 
streams may receive contributions of State fish to main- 
tain the supply, and Section 103 of the game law makes 
it a misdemeanor, with penalty attache(J, to rob the 
people of their fish and place them in a private pond, and 
yet the farmer's advocate in his editorial says to the 
farmer that he may build his pond and "by stealth he 
may stock it," and then goes on to prate of fish thus 
stolen from the taxpayers of the State as belonging to 
the farmer as much as "the fowls in his poultry vard or 
the cattle on his hillsides." 
No matter what he said after that, I would be afraid 
that his purpose was to land me in jail while he professed 
to be my friend, and was trying to sell me an elegant 
gold brick in the shape of a chimerical trout pond to sink 
my money in that I had made from my corn crop. 
This would-be reformer of our laws that have not a 
spoonful of brains in their construction, according to his 
idea, says that "the trout in a private pond are the prop- 
erty of the owner, and he has a moral right to catch 
them when he pleases, eat them when he pleases or send 
them where he pleases, unhampered by the law," 
Not so; and for the same reason that we have Jaws 
which protect the people from bob veal and milk from 
swill-fed cows. A trout after spawning is a poor, miser- 
able, slimy creature, no better for food than bob veal, 
and no one has a moral or legal right to send such fish 
to market for human food, and the people are guarded 
from such an imposition by the close season for trout. 
Trout cannot be caught or possessed during this breeding 
