Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a "XkAb 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 18 97. 
; VOL. XL VIII.— No. 3. 
I No. 346 Bboabwat, New Yoek. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page iit. 
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Forest and Stream^Water Colors 
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 In. "He's Got Them" (Quail Shooting). 
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The plates are for frames 14 x 19 in. They are done in 
twelve colors, and are rich in effect. They are furnished 
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FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., New York. 
$i^i^*iifii«iei^^eif*^f*^^ 
It has so happened that all the pttblic services that 
I have tendered in the world in my day and gener- 
ation have heen connected with the general 
gfovcrnment. I think I ought to make an excep- 
tion. I was ten days a member of the Massachusetts 
Legislature, and I turned my thoughts to the 
search of some good object in which I could be 
useful in that position, and after much reflection I 
introduced a bill which, with the consent of both 
houses of the Legislature, passed into a law and is 
now a law of the State, which enacts that no man 
in the State shall catch trout in any manner than 
in the old way, with an ordinary hook and line. 
Daniel Webster. 
itself carries the fire, not only on its surface, hut also by 
devious and hidden ways. This forest floor is made up of 
the decayed and decaying leaves, cones, branches, stumps 
and roots of the pine, all these full of resin, and waiting 
only the touch, of a spark to burn. Sometimes a root fiber, 
ignited, may smoulder for days, traveling underground, un- 
seen and unsuspected, until it again reaches the surface 
many feet away. Now, if by a breeze it is blown into 
flame, it soon gathers headway and a fire is started. 
Lanes such as proposed might in certain localities be use- 
ful aids in fire fighting, but of themselves they can accom- 
plish nothing. To receive public approval some more com- 
prehensive scheme of forest protection than this must be 
devised. Such a plan may be hoped for from the forestry 
commission nominated last year by the National Academy 
of Science at the request of the President. Pending the ad- 
vancement of such a plan and the legislation required to 
put it in operation, authority should be given to the Secre- 
tary of the Interior to call on the War Department for 
details of troops to do [police duty in the various forest 
reservations. Such duty is now performed by United States 
troops in some of the national parks, and the success in pro 
tecting the forests achieved by Capt. George I. Anderson, 
Superintendent of the Yellowstone Park, and by other ofli- 
cers in other localities, furnishes evidence of what may be 
done by this method of protection, which certainly ought to 
be considered by the Government authorities. 
The one discouraging matter connected, with the vote on 
this bill is the small attendance and lack of apparent interest 
in the subject. Only fifty-three persons voted on the bill. This 
shows an apathy among Congressmen on an important sub- 
ject which does not promise much for wise forestry legis 
lation in the near future. 
FAILURE OF THE SHAFROTH BILL. 
The failure of the Shafroth Mil to pass the House of 
Representatives need not greatly discourage any friend of 
forest preservation, and indeed will gratify those who are 
familiar with the conditions which prevail in the forests of 
the West. 
The measure, though introduced from the best of motivesj 
was hopelessly inadequate for two reasons. It carried no 
appropriation, and so its provisions could not have been en- 
forced; while even if they had been enforced, the lanes 
authorized to be cut through the forest would prove no bar- 
rier to the advance of a fire raging in pine timber and carried 
forward by the wind. 
The bill authorized the Secretary of the Interior to have 
lanes about 1,000 feet in width cut through any forests on 
the public domain, at intervals of from five to ten miles. 
The timber on these lanes the Secretary was to offer for sale 
at public auction, the buyer to agree to clear the lanes and 
remove the timber. If the value of the timber was not suffi- 
cient to pay for the clearing of the lane, bids for clearing it 
might be accepted by the Secretary. 
Much has been written concerning the fierceness and 
swiftness with which fire burns and runs in pine timber, for 
to say nothing of the forest fires in the far West, there have 
been of late years frequent and appalling examples of their 
terrible destructiveness in the forests of Michigan, Minne- 
sota and Wisconsin. It is perfectly well known that such 
fires often proceed by long leaps, that the air is filled with 
burning brands, cinders and sparks, which are carried for 
miles, and that the actual flames are preceded by gusts of 
air so fiercely hot that they utterly blast and destroy every 
living thing in their path and cause dry wood or vegetation 
at once to burst into flame. To such fires a lane 1,000 feet 
wide would prove no barrier. 
But even if such a lane should stop the progress of a fire 
raging among standing timbers, there are other things to be 
taken into account In such a lane, after the timber had 
been removed, there would be left a mass of twigs, branches 
and tops of trees which would soon dry out and would carry 
the fire along the ground, not quite so rapidly as it would 
travel among the tree tops, but not less certainly. This 
great brush pile, dry, resinous and intertwined with the 
dead weeds, grass and vines which would at once spring up 
in it, would be a constant menace to the forests. It would 
be impossible to clear away all this material, and to keep it 
cleared, without the continued employment of a large force 
of men. 
Eyen if it ■were kept clear, the underlying forest floor 
tion of game purely from the economic standpoint. The 
sooner the economic aspect of game has full recognition, 
the sooner shall we have efficient laws to secure to the 
community the economic advantages which come from wise 
game laws honestly enforced. As we have pointed out, the 
game laws properly have nothing to do with sentiment; their 
purpose is to maintain the supply. Any community, 
whether it be a village or a commonwealth, which in this 
age of the world ignores the economic value of its game and 
fish resources, is either careless or benighted, and of the two 
conditions there is small choice. 
This is true in Massachusetts, and it is quite as true in 
Texas, The Massachusetts Legislature has repeatedly been 
bamboozled by spurious pleas in behalf of the "farmer's 
boy" who ought to have the paltry privilege of trapping 
partridges on the old farm. The real "farmer's boy" who 
wants to trap partridges is a husky youth of forty years, who, 
though living in a civilized community, is averse to earning 
his living by civilized methods, but prefers the less arduous 
recourse of snaring birds to sell. Multiply the individual 
Massachusetts snarer into a horde and we have the Texas 
contingent of quail netters, who have been scooping in the 
game by the barrelful and carload, until at last the citizens 
of the State have come to a realizing sense of the ruin which 
has been wrought, and now in the person of the members of 
the State Sportsmen's Association are determined upon a 
reform. It all ends in the one and only effectual system: 
Stop the sale of game. 
STOP THE SALE OF GAME. 
The sale of game should be forbidden at all seasons.— 
Forest and Siteam Platform Plank. 
In that declaration we may have been in advance of pub- 
lic conviction in this country, but every day is bringing re- 
newed evidence that sentiment is rapidly making in support 
of the principle involved. It is recognized more and more 
clearly that the one great agency that is depleting our game 
supply and making barren the covers is the continued and 
relentless industry of the market shooter. The tendency of 
new legislation is in the dhection of limiting trafiic in game, 
and thus it is approaching more or less closely to what must 
be the ultimate expedient, the absolute prohibition of the sale 
of game at all times. 
In Michigan it is proposed to change the law this session 
to prohibit absolutely the sale of game. In Tennessee an 
effort is making to incorporate into the law a provision 
which forbids the export of game to market. We published - 
last week a note from Broome county in this State, propos- 
ing an organization of a five-county league for the purpose 
of furthering the enforcement of the law which now pre- 
vails against the transportation of ruffed grouse, and it was 
pointed out that the law as it now stands is ineffectual be- 
cause it permits the transportation of an unlimited number 
of birds if they are accompanied by the owner. The way is 
thus opened for dealers to gather immense quantities of ruffed 
grouse, which because of the size of the shipment they can af 
ford to accompany to market, yet ^ thus comply with the 
letter of the statute. A remedy for this abuse 'might be 
easily found by adopting such a limitation as that one 
which is found in the laws of some States restricting the 
number of birds which any one individual may transport at 
one time. It is generally recognized in the counties named 
(hat the great bulk of the game is killed by a few indi- 
viduals who pursue it incessantly in season for sale. A pro- 
vision limiting the number one person could accompany 
would effectually cut off this tratfic, 
We believe that the State Association of New York can do 
no more important service this winter than to strive for the 
making of a public sentiment which shall compel the Legis- 
lature to rescind section 349 of the game law, which now 
permits the sale of game at all seasons. So long as the New 
York market is open for the reception of game the game 
will come to it, both in season and out of season, and not 
only from other States, but from New York covers as well. 
At a meeting in St. Paul the other day, attended by the 
fish and game wardens of Wisconsin, Michigan and Minne- 
sota, plans were discussed for providing for the States of 
Mmnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and pcssibly North and 
South Dakota, a uniform code of laws. The purpose of the 
meeting, as declared by Wx. Chase S. Osborn, State Game 
and Fish Warden of Michigan, was to consider the protec- 
SOCKEYES, AUHUHU AND TROUSERS. 
Ajierican species of fish for stocking foreign waters have 
been carried successfully as far as New Zealand; and there 
appears to be in the distance involyed no obstacle to the suc- 
cess of the enterprise now making of introducing fish from 
this continent into the waters of the Sandwich Islands. A 
press dispatch from Montreal to the Evening Post, of this 
city, last Monday, reported that on the steamship Miowera, 
which left Vancouver, B. C, on Saturday for Honolulu, 
§0,000 young sockeye .salmon were shipped from the Domin- 
ion Government hatchery at Bonaccord, on the Fraser River, 
in response to a request from the Hawaiian Governmentj 
backed by the personal application of Mr. Armstrong, of 
Honolulu, to the Minister of Fisheries at Ottawa The ship- 
ment is made with a view of ascertaining whether British 
Columbian salmon can be acclimatized in the rivers of the 
Hawaiian Islands. 
If the sockeye shall be established, it is to be hoped that 
such of the native fishermen as come of old Island family 
may not feel obhged to take their fish in the American fash- 
ion, for the way of their fathers was much more picturesque 
and exciting, and therefore vastly more sportsmanlike. 
When a Hawaiian was bent on having fish for supper, he 
dived down into the depths of the sea and placed among the 
stones of the bottom a plant called auhuhu, which possesses 
the property of intoxicating fish. Then as his victim floundered 
about and pursued the aimless, erratic and stupid course of 
a fish full of auhuhu, the fisherman swam and dived after it; 
and witless of bob, hook or sinker, took his fish by hand, 
and if it was a big one wrestled with it manfully until 
he got it ashore. But this was in the good old days 
when the Islanders, untrammeled by dress, were famous 
experts in diving and swimming. They were then in fact 
amphibious, equally at home on the land or in the surf. 
The Hawaiians of the present generation, being hampered 
by clothing, are less given to exercise in the natatorial art; 
they have lost that marvelous dexterity in the water at 
which the visiting white men used to wonder; and it may 
be that even if they should be ambitious to pursue the 
sockeye in its osvn element, after the fashion of their grand-- 
fathers, they would lack the skill were they never so lavish 
of the fish befuddling auhuhu. It may even come to pass 
as a phenomenon of the civilized Hawaiian Islands that a de- 
generate scion of this dusky race— whose agile ancestor 
thought nothing of casting himself from a rocky 
height into the sea, pouncing upon hia prey as a 
fish hawk out of the air— may rig himself out in 
waterproof wading trousers to keep himself dry 
while he fishes. And in the Hawaiian sportsmen's jour- 
nals—for no race is ever truly civihzed until it has its litera* 
ture of the forests and the streams— the "rubber pants'' 
angler may deride the naked fishermen of old and inveigh 
against their ancient diving and grabbing exploits as the 
ignoble and pot-fishing expedients of an untutored, untrous- 
ered and unsportsmanlike race of barbarians. In such wise 
does the pernicious custom of wearing clothes beget at once 
irreverence for ancestral waya and degeneracy of flehing 
methods, 
