Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Yeau 10 Cts. a Copt. 
Six Months, $2. ' 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1897. 
: VOL. XLVIII.— No. 12. 
I No. 346 Bboad'way, New Yobk 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page iii. 
FOREST AND STREAT^ OFFICE 
346 Broadway 
NEW YORK LIFE BUILDING 
Present Entrance on Leonard Street 
Bear-Ixuntmg:, as a g-enef al rule, I do not think 
would appeal to most sportsmen. It is rathet slow 
work^ and one is often very inadequately reward- 
ed for the time and trouble spent in hunting; up 
bruin. There is hardly a portion of the moun- 
tains where there are not evidences of bears^ but I 
do not believe that in any locality they are espe- 
cially abundant. They have been hunted and 
trapped so long; that those which survive are ex- 
tremely cautious. In my experience there is no 
animal gfifted with a g:reater amount of intelli- 
gfence, and, in this reg^ion, the hunter^s chief virtue, 
patience to wait and stay in one spot, is sure to be ' 
rewarded, sooner or later, with a good shot which 
should mean success. Archibald Rogers. 
THE NEW FOREST RE8EBVES. 
In another column we print a letter from a Washington 
correspondent, who takes exception to a recent editorial 
in Forest and Stream on the new forest reservations, and 
gives a number of reasons for his belief that the setting 
aside of these new reservations will work injury to the 
Western country and to its residents. This letter voices a 
sentiment which is widely extended through the West, 
and which is natural enough to people who imagine that 
their interests are threatened. The alarm manifested, 
however, is groundless, because it is based on an entire 
misapprehension of the facts. 
When the National Academy was requested to nominate 
a committee of forestry experts, it was for the purpose of 
examining the forests of the public domain, and preparing 
a comprehensive plan Jbr' their preservation and care. 
The first part of this work has been done. The forests 
have been examined, and as a result the Commission has 
recommended the establishment of the thirteen reserves 
which we have enumerated. It is now continuing its 
work, and has passed on to the second portion of it, that is 
to say, to the preparation of a plan for the care of the 
forests. After this plan has been worked out, it will recom- 
mend legislation looking toward the preservation of the 
forests and such use of them as shall make them of the 
greatest value to the people of the United States, no matter 
where they reside. 
In considering the recommendations of the Commission, 
it is worth while to remember that the men who compose 
it are those of the very highest rank in their various special 
fields of work. The Commission includes not only a trained 
forester, but also an engineer, a geologist, a botanist, a min- 
ing expert, a naturalist and a person familiar with our river 
systems. With hardly an exception these men have for 
many years been familiar with the Western country and 
its needs. Several of them have spent more than thirty 
years traveling North and South, and East and West, over 
prairie and mountain, from the Pacific to the Missouri 
River, from the Mexican boundary line south to Mexico. ' 
They are thus neither "pilgrims" nor persons dominated 
by a single idea, since they represent as many professions 
as they do individuals, and since each one stands high in 
his profession. It seems, then, reasonable to believe that 
such men will take a broad view of the subject of our West- 
ern forests, and will consider carefully not only how they 
may best preserve these forests, but also how they may best 
avoid working harm to persons of any class, or to the resi- 
dents of any section. 
Oar correspondent, and the dispatches published from 
widely separated localities in the daily newspapers, talk 
about the injmy to settlers, the injury to miners, and the 
injury to stockmen, that will be worked by the establish- 
ment of the forest reservations. We believe that these 
people are all wrong, and that they say these wild things 
merely because they do not understand the facts of the case. 
We have it on the best authority — that of the Commis- 
sioners themselves — that the Commission will recommend 
that agricultural lands lying within the reservations 
named shall be excepted, so that the settler who wishes to 
do so may take up a claim of arable land within the reser- 
vation just as he might have done before the reservation 
was established; that miners will be allowed to prospect 
and to mine on the reservations, and to cut timber for use 
in their mines; that actual settlers will be allowed to cut 
such timber as they may need for domestic purposes — that 
is to say, for the building of houses and barnes, of fences 
and corrals, and for fuel. But we may feel confident tha* 
miners will not be allowed to burn the forests through 
carelessness or by intention, and that individuals will not 
be allowed to go on the public land and cutfor commercial 
purposes the timber which belongs not to them, but to the 
people at large. 
Thus it will be seen that the rights of no individual are 
to be interfered with; that no settler will be prevented 
from taking ujj a ranch; that no prospector will be hindered 
from searching for minerals, no miner from working on his 
claim. All the temper, all the speeches and all the resolu- 
tions which have been expended on this subject have been 
uncalled for. They have been shots fired at a phantom. 
No one who has long been familiar with the Western 
country (and especially with the forests of Washington 
and Oregon) can be ignorant of the enormous damage that 
has been done by forest fires there, nor of the vast quan- 
tity of timber that has been cut on Government land, 
taken but, sawed and sold, without one penny of return to 
the general Government. It is to put an end to abuses 
such as these that the forests should be cared for. They 
are to be protected, not in order that they may not be 
used, but that they may be used, but used in an intelligent 
way, and so may become to this Government what they 
surely would be if they were in private hands: a source of 
income, a part of the material wealth of the people. 
It is worth while in this connection to recall what has 
been the course of affairs in other forest reservations, set 
aside in recent years. In such reserves no settler has been 
disturbed, no miners have been interfered with. Instead 
of this, settlers have carried on their ranches; built their 
houses, barns, fe^nces and corrals, and pastured their cattle 
on the reserves. Miners have prospected, established 
their claims, sunk their shafts, run their tunnels and tim- 
bered them. To none of these classes of individuals has 
any injury ensued because of the setting aside of the 
reseiwations. 
It is necessary that such reserves should be established. 
This is the initial step in a system of forest preservation 
such as all intelligent persons must acknowledge that this 
country needs. No one's rights can be encroached on 
without legislation by Congress, and no legislation can be 
enacted without a full discussion, in which each section of 
our country will have a voice. Such alarm and apprehen- 
sion as are expressed by our correspondent are uncalled 
for. It would be better for the people du-ectly con- 
cerned not to get excited about things of which as yet 
little or nothing is known, but to wait until fuller infor- 
mation shall enable them to form an intelligent opinion 
on the subject. 
In many comrnunities there has been ill-considered 
agitation about these reserves, which does not at all reflect 
the sober judgment of the general public. It may very 
well be that much of this hasty talk comes from per- 
sons who "go off at half-cock," and make speeches and 
offer resolutions without at all knowing what they are 
talking about. It must be remembered though that the 
great body of the American people who are adults use 
intelligence and reason, and do not, like little children 
frightened by a stump bear, run shrieking away from a 
danger that does not exist. 
We urge the people of East and West alike to take a 
temperate view of this subject of the new forest reserves 
and to await the final report of the National Forestry Com- 
mission before rushing to a conclusion that either the East 
or. the West is to be ruined by the establishment of the 
reserves. A priori, the facts are all in favor of wise recom- 
mendations by a Commission made up of such men as is 
this one; and we venture to predict with confidence that 
in a few months those persons who are now making the 
most outcry about the injury likely to be done will be the 
most enthusiastic in favor of the plan which the Commis- 
sion shall recommend. 
FOR THE INDIGENl POOR. 
It has been left for a New Jersey assemblyman to take 
a step which will go far to compel for the game laws the 
sympathetic indorsement of all charitably disposed citizens; 
in one State at least no longer will be heard denunciations 
of game protection as a system unjustly devised and main- 
tained for the benefit of privileged classes. Henceforth the 
game law of New Jersey may shine forth as a beneficent 
provision for a deserving part of the community. Mr, 
Ambruster has introduced in the Assembly at Trenton a 
bill which runs: 
It shul] be lawful for the board, body or authority having charge of 
matter affecting the indigent but worthy poor to issue permits to said 
poor to shoot game, birds, rabbits, catfish and quail, in order that they 
may so provide for their sustenance and uo longer be a charge ©n the 
municipality in which they live. 
Is not one who is simply poor quite as much entitled as 
one who is both poor and indigent to gather a sustenance 
of wild game? Should the indigent poor have hunting 
privileges refused the poor? Moreover, if the indigent 
poor of New Jersey are ever to fill themselves with quail 
and catfish, Mr. Ambruster's measure should carry with it 
an appropriation for powder, shot, car fare, dog hire and 
mosquito lotion. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
We regret that the New York (City) Association for the 
Protection of Game should have considered it expedient 
to compromise with the market men as to Section 249 of 
the game law, permitting the sale of game the year around. 
As we understand the case, the Association was moved to 
recommend a compromise, because President Gilman, of 
the commission men's organization, gave out that he owned 
the legislative committees, and any new legislation ap- 
proved by those committees would be only such as he, their 
boss, might sanction. Before accepting Mr. Oilman's re- 
presentations, it would have been the part of prudence for 
the Association to inquire whether or not he really did 
carry the Albany committees in his pocket. There is a 
possibility that he was bluflBng, and there is a probability 
that the Senate and Assembly committees would give hon- 
est consideration to the subject. Under such conditions, 
united action by the sportsmen of the State, as represented 
by the State Association, would prevail to win repeal of 
the iniquitous measure. As the case now stands, one hears 
it said at Albany that the New York (City) Association is 
for compromise, and that therefore compromise, and not 
repeal, is the expedient action. There should be no com- 
promise. Section 249 should be repealed unconditionally. 
The committee on the Fly-Casting Tournament at the 
sportsmen's show at Madison Square Garden is composed 
of anglers who are so devoted to the sport that they need 
little to intensify their enthusiasm. If anything was lac-k- 
ing, an incentive came for them in a telegram received 
Monday by Manager Frank W. Sanger from Horace 
Smythe, secretary of the San Francisco Fly-Casting Club, 
who triumphantly wired that Walter D. Mansfield, the 
club's president, had just broken the world's record for 
long-distance fly-casting during the progress of the club's 
tournament Monday, Mr. Mansfield's cast was 108ft. 6in., 
and was a single-handed cast. 
The Baldwin bill in the Pennsylvania Legislature is an 
excellent measure in so far as it will provide a State game 
and fish warden and a force of deputies. There should be 
such executive machinery in Pennsylvania as in every 
civilized commonwealth. To leave the enforcement of the 
fish and game laws to an unsalaried fish commission is 
the poorest possible economy. We believe that the wiser 
plan would have been to make the warden wholly inde- 
pendent of the Fish and Game Commissioners. There is 
no necessary connection between the activities of fish cul- 
ture and fish planting and the enforcement of the fish and 
game laws. The Fish Commission should not be taxed with 
the work of executing the statutes. To give them the ap- 
pointment of wardens is to put upon them a thankless, bur- 
densome, distracting and aggravating task, in which petty 
politics interfere with their proper work. However, the 
system provided by the Baldwin bill is so decidedly an ad- 
vance upon the present situation that the measure should 
have the heartiest support of all good citizens. Fish and 
game law violations in Pennsylvania are disgracefully 
common; an end must be put to them; this cannot be done 
unless to do it be made the duty of some one responsible 
official. This is the purpose of the Baldwin bill. We trust 
that it may become law. 
