Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Ots. a Copy. / 
Six Months, $2. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1897, 
I 
VOL. XLVni.— No. 15. 
No. 346 Bhoadway, New York J 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page iii. 
My dog' Bowie-knife thmks that the world is 
full of b'ar, he finds them so easy. I never could 
tell whether he was made expressly to hunt b'ar^ 
or whether b^ar was made expressly for him to 
hunt ; anyway, I believe they were ordained to %o 
together as naturally as Squire Jones says a man 
and woman is^ when he moralizes in marrying- a 
couple* In fact, Jones once said, said he : Mar- 
riage according to law is a civil contract of divine 
origin; it^s common to all countries as well as 
Arkansaw, and people take to it as naturally as 
Tim Doggett^s Bowie-knife takes to b'ar. 
Big Bear of Arkansas. 
TRE FOEEST RESERVES. 
We publish on another page a letter from Governor 
"Richards, of Wj'^oming, with reference to the forest 
reserves. Governor Richards tells us that we were in 
error when we said the other day that no mining opera- 
tions or other enterprises had been interfered with by the 
setting apart of the reservations heretofore made, and he 
cites certain instances where such interference has oper- 
ated to -the detriment of interests in his own State. The 
statement to which he alludes was based in general on the 
absence of any specific warrant for such interference in 
the forest reserve law of March 5, 1891. But more particu- 
larly it was based upon what had been communicated to 
us with respect to some of the very cases cited by Gover- 
nor Richards. For instance, we had been informed upon 
what was assumed to be adequate authority that the 
miners and ranchmen in the Sunlight Basin had some 
time ago been advised by the Interior Department that 
their operations would not be interfered with; and it was 
upon such information that our comments were founded. 
The hardships caused by the establishment of the forest 
reserves arise from an interference with certain enter- 
prises, which is purely temporary. The setting aside of 
these tracts implies no forfeiture of any rights, whether 
already acquired or in process of establishment. Such 
temporary hardships must be balanced against the un- 
questioned vast benefits to be conferred on the whole 
West by an adequate system ,of forest preservation. The 
forest reservations are established not ifor the advantage 
of any class, but for the benefit of every community, where- 
ever it may be located. If the acquirement of a title, to his 
claim by a settler is put ofl" for a time, yet that title when 
he gets it, is worth to him far more under a law which pro- 
vides forest protection than if no such protection existed. 
If'a law providing for surveys and an adequate forest pre- 
serve system could have been had, it might have been bet- 
ter to liave made the surveys before establishing the 
reservations, but the entire disregard of the subject by 
Congress in the past justifies the belief that many years 
might elapse before the money for such survey would be 
appropriated, and in the meantime the forests would be 
disappearing, the little streams on which the ranchman 
in the dry West depends for his hay, and his garden would 
grow smaller and smaller, while the floods which threaten 
the fertile valleys of Pacific coast rivers would become 
more and more a menace. 
We join with Gov. Richards in his condemnation of 
the inadequacy of the National forestry laws and in his pro- 
test against their inefficiency. Congress should have en- 
acted years ago forest laws, under the operation of which 
the setting aside of a forest reservation would involve in- 
j ury to no one's interests. Whatever of hardship may have 
been inflicted in Wyoming has been the result of this in- 
difierence and inaction on the part of Congress, and is not 
a legitimate fruit of the forest reserve policj^ nor could it 
continue after the embodying of that policy in a law by 
Congress. The policy was well outlined by the Forestry 
Commission in their report last February to the Secretary 
of the Interior, in which they said: 
"The Commission fully recognized the fact that the for- 
est reserves established and proposed cannot be main- 
tained imless a plan can be adopted under which their 
boundaries can be modified so as to take from them all 
lands better suited for agriculture than for the production 
of forests, and under which their timber can be made 
available for domestic and commercial purposes, and valu- 
able mineral freely sought for and mined within their 
boundaries," 
The Commission has been continuously at work on 
such a plan as was here contemplated; it is very shortly to 
be submitted to the executive, and we have urged the 
public to await the publication of this report and to take 
it into consideration before making final estimate of the 
wisdom of the reservations. If the amendment, which at 
this writing is pending in Congress, to authorize immedi- 
ate survey of the tracts set apart, shall become a law. 
President McKinley will have it within his power to 
modify the present boundaries precisely in the way orig- 
inally contemplated by the Forestry Commission and set 
forth in its recommendations as quoted above. 
We do not, as Gov. Richards intimates, imagine that the 
people of the West are ill balanced. Human naturei 
nevertheless, is human nature, whether west of the Mis- 
souri River or east of it; the people of the two sections, it 
may be assumed, would act very much alike under like 
conditions, and the Portland Oregonian was no doubt right 
in its editorial expression of March 26 when it said: 
"We have illustration here in the Northwest to-day of the spirit 
with which protective forestry measures would have been received in 
the Allegheny and Tennessee mountains 100 years ago. Tempoi-ary 
self-interest, real or fancied, frets at restrictive measures for perma- 
nent benefit, just as juries find not guilty the game law violator, 
though caught red-handed at his slaughter. The lowland.* along the 
Willamette and Columbia may some day witness a repetition of these 
Mississippi horrors, if all efforts <o protect the forests of the Cascade 
Mountains are rendered ineffective." 
This attitude of the Oregonian toward the forest reserves, 
by the way, does not go to support the contention elabor- 
ated at such length by our correspondent who writes from 
Everett, Washington, that the forest reservation policy is 
an imposition put upon the West by the machinations 
of the efl"ete East. Portland, Ore., is so far removed from 
Portland, Me., as reasonably to be credited with freedom 
from the tincture of Down-East prejudice; it out-wests 
Everett itself on the map, and yet the Oregonian stands 
for the reservations as planned by the Commission. In 
this, as in so many other interests, we believe that our 
Oregon contemporary represents the intelligent public 
opinion of the Pacific coast; and we refuse to accept as re- 
flecting the real sentiment of the West Cayuga's argument 
of sectionalism, provincial • conspiracy and geographical 
enmity. Those who are laboring for the perpetuation of 
the forest resources of the great watersheds of the North- 
west are impelled by an enlightened patriotism which 
knows no East as opposed in'interestto the West, nor any 
West whose true interests are not the true interests also of 
the East and of the entire country. 
NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
On March 24 a hearing was given by the Sinking Fund 
Commissioners of New York city to the executive com- 
mittee of the New York Zoological Society. At the close 
of this hearing, the Mayor and the other Sinking Fund 
Commissioners, by a unanimous vote, approved a resolu- 
tion allotting to use of the Zoological Society a tract of 
about 261 acres, comprising South Bronx Park. This 
allotment was made on condition that within three years 
the Society shall raise $250,000, from which it shall fur- 
nish building and collections for the Zoological Park. The 
grounds shall be prepared by the Park Commissioners of 
the city, and the city shall bear the expense of maintain- 
ing the park and its collections. The buildings erected by 
the Society wiU become the property of the city, but the 
collections will be held by the Society; but it is under- 
stood that these collections shall not be moved or mort- 
gaged except in the event of the failure of the city to pro- 
vide funds for their maintenance. 
A bill has been introduced in the New York Legislature 
to provide $150,000 for ground improvements, prior to the 
erection of buildings by the Society. There seems to be no 
opposition to this bill, and it is hoped that within a short 
time it will become a law. So soon as this money shall 
have been appropriated, the Park Department will begin 
the work of preparing the ground for the uses of the 
Society. 
The sum required to comply with the city's conditions is 
a large one, yet it cannot be doubted that among New 
York's citizens there are many who will be glad to con- 
tribute liberally to an object which promises to do so much 
for the classes whose pleasures are few and whose horizon 
is limited. The fact that the Society's collections will be 
open to the public for at least five days in each week, and 
always on Sundays and holidays, will make the Zoological 
Park a boon and a blessing to the poor, and in itself is a 
strong appeal for liberal donations from those who are able 
to give. 
Among the readers of the Forest and Stkeam there is a 
very large number who are interested in natural history, 
or in wild animals or in living things in general, and all 
such may be expected to feel an especial interest in the 
projected park. The Zoological Society will soon be mak- 
ing an efibrt not only to secure generous subscriptions 
toward the sum required to fulfill the city's conditions, but 
also to secure annual members, whose dues of $10 a year 
will go a long way toward paying the current expenses of 
the Society. It is to be hoped that among the future mem- 
bers of the New York Zoological Society there will be 
many readers of Foeest and Stream. 
Great credit is due to the executive committee of the 
New York Zoological Society, and especially to Prof 
Henry F. Osborn, its chairman, for the energy with which 
the work of pushing the young Society has been carried 
on, and the great success that is attending it. Unless un- 
foreseen obstacles shall present themselves, the prospects 
seem bright for an • early beginning of this important 
work, 
SNAP SHOTS. 
A novel feature of game legislation is contained in a bill 
now before the Minnesota Legislature with reference to the 
possession of game in close season. Under its terms when 
a person has killed or purchased game he will be able to 
keep it indefinitely, subject to certain restrictions. These 
are that he must notify the Game and Fish Commissioners 
of his possession of the game and obtain from them tags to 
be affixed to each quadruped or bird, and must sign a bond 
that the game so tagged will be devoted to his own use and 
will not be sold nor transferred to others. The game 
which may be possessed tmder this rule will be limited to 
one caribou, one moose, five deer and 100 birds. The pur- 
pose of the concession is to disarm that criticism of the 
game laws which finds its reason in dissatisfaction with 
the clause forbidding the possession of game for more than 
five days after the close of the open shooting season. If 
the new system can be conducted in such a way that eva, 
sion will be made difficult, the change cannot help being 
an advantage by enlisting the sympathy of a large number 
of people who are now opposed to protection. 
In Germany they have just been celebrating the 100th 
anniversary of the death of that noted author. Baron Hie- 
ronymus Karl Friedrich von Miinchhausen. Milnchhau- 
sen was a Hanoverian nobleman, who was born in 1720 
and died in 1797. He was notorious for the magnificent 
lies he used to tell about his exploits as a sportsman and 
on the field of battle. The collection of istories attributed 
to him was published in Germany during his life, and the 
English version was an expansion of the original. As for 
Miinchhausen, it may be said that he has left his enduring 
mark upon posterity as a colossal liar. 
We said the other day that the principle of game laws 
did not involve an unwarranted abrogation of personal 
and individual rights. Our Pennsylvania correspondent 
appears to have misconstrued our remarks. When we 
compared game shooting restrictions with laws which apply 
to the possession of diseased cattle, and the conversion of 
rye, corn and potatoes into whisky, it was not to class 
game in the category with these articles, as being subject 
to legislation for the same reasons which prompted the 
laws with respect to them. We cited them only to illus- 
trate the fact that as to varied classes of possessions the ■ 
citizen had not absolute right to do as he pleases, irre- 
spective of the community. The reason that the sale of 
game is forbidden, or that game may be taken only within 
certain seasons, lies in the fact that experience has shown 
to the community that such regulations are for the public 
good. To make and enforce game laws, then, is not unjustifi- 
ably toinfringe any individual rights which one may fancy 
he has in these matters. The game laws belong with the 
laws regulating cattle, crops, houses, and various other 
articles and activities, as coming within the police power 
of the State, which in a word means its power to regulate 
the conduct of man in a civilized community, so that he 
may enjoy his own without detracting from the enjoyment 
of their own by his fellows. Thus, if in Pennsylvania 
experience has shown that it is against the interest of the 
greatest number that game should be snared, or that game 
should be made an article of sale, it is within the police 
power of the State to forbid snaring and to forbid sale; and 
against the operation of such a law no claim of individual 
right and privilege can. be held to prevail. 
