S48 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
lmat 1, im. 
THE ALABAMA ASSOCIATION. 
BiRMrsTGHAM, April 31. — Editor Forest and Stream: As 
secretary of the Ala.bama Game and Fish Protective Associa- 
tion, I wish to express our appreciation of your interest in 
our cause, and especially of the use of the columns of the 
best and oldest sportsman's paper in this country. This is a 
benefit which none could fail to appreciate. 
Bij^ht now I want to say soraelhing to the sportsmen of 
the State through your coiumus. I wish you could ring it 
in their ears until it would arouse them to the fact that four 
or five men, no matter how determined or zealous in a cause, 
cannot carry it to a successful termination. You must get 
up and help, brother. You cannot do any good by sending 
us a postal card saying you are heartily in sympathy with us, 
then sitting down and grumbling because we liave accom- 
plished nothing. So get up and go to work. 
We want a local association in every county in the State. 
What is the matter with your county? You are the very 
man to organize it. Suppose most of your friends and neigh- 
bors are farmers — the very people I Thej own the majority 
of the land in this State, and we need their help. Don't say 
they will not do anything but chase you off their land every 
time they find you there with a gun or fishing rod. Try 
them first and see if they won't give you their support. I 
guarantee they will, and if you are a right-minded sportsman, 
and do not try to carr)' oH all the game, they will not only 
let you shoot,' but invite you to come again. 
Now, to insure a grand success we mast have conceit of 
action all over the State. You see how we are liable to have 
conflicting laws, when each county enacts local laws with no 
regard to her sister county. How shall we enforce the laws 
unless we have oflicers whose duty it shall be to attend to 
their enforcement? 
The utter disregard for the laws now in force demonstrates 
the fact that "What is every man's business is no man's busi- 
ness," You can hardly blame a man for not reporting a 
neighbor or friend, thereby creating an enmity or probably 
a feud in the neighborhood. Don't you see the remedy? 
Let us have some one whose duty it shall be to attend to this, 
then we will have protection. 
Now, are you fellows going to ait off down there in your 
counties and wait until we pass laws for the State, then raise 
a row, and say, "Those laws don't suit us in this county"? 
That won't do. We beg and implore every county to send as 
many members as they see fit to our annual meeting, so they 
may have a voice in everything that is done. 
We are going to push this protection to a successful issue, 
whether you help us or not from your county. If it don't 
suit you, keep quiet; for you had a chance to have your voice 
in council, but would not. 
Now as to what we are doing so far. We have some of 
the best legal talent in the State interested in our cause, men 
who are in close touch with our representatives. They are 
now at work framing laws to secure the ends we seek. 'These 
laws will come before the association at its next meeting for 
approval. 
We have secured bass from the Grovernment for stocking 
three of our streams, also their promise to put in fishways in 
the locks at Tuscaloosa on the Warrior River, where the fish 
have been cut off from their spawning grounds for several 
years. 
This is not much, but it is a beginning; and if all will 
work together it will be but a short while until we have 
a veritable sportsman's paradise, such as it was when it came 
from the hands of an all-wise Oeator. 
J. H. Allen, Sec'y. 
SHOOTING PRIVILEGES AND TRESPASS. 
Editor Forest and Sir earn: 
Mr. Lexden is evidently a gentleman who has the welfare 
of game at heart, and probably has no personal interest in 
any preserve or tract of land which has upon it the kind of 
scenery which he loves to admire. I am sorry he thought 
1 was making an argument that landowners should not do 
exactly as they please with whatever belongs to them, when 
I was only asking a question for information— What are we 
poor devils going lo do when the terrible landowners agree 
that the interests of game protection demand that we be put 
off? 1 am not talking about the turnip patch back of the 
house; I wouldn't like to tramp up any man's quail pie- 
serve, and I think he would do just right to take the shot- 
gun to me. I suppose Lexden has never been where he has 
not seen the face of a companion, even a dog, for any con- 
siderable time — at least, does not make a practice of going off 
alone twenty or thirty miles from any living soul. But when 
he realizes that that wild land is private land, as, absolute! v 
under its owner's control as the ground his house is built 
upon, some curious questions will arise in his mind, and if 
ever he has been ordered ofl! or forbidden to go upon such 
land, those questions will demand an answer. 
The rights of property are sacred and inviolable. What 1 
make, or what 1 have paid fair compensation for, is mine 
absolutely to do with as I please. I am surprised Lexden 
seriously aigues that, but that he misunderstood me I am not 
in the least surprised. We expect to be misunderstood when 
we say some things. But what annoys Lexden is the hor- 
rible suggestion that there are any rights inseparable from 
acreage. The owner of the land does not have "exclusive 
control" if the "State requires him to pay each year 'some- 
thing' in the form of taxes." 
Mr. Lexden intends that no one shall hunt game except 
owners of land? Then it seems to me it is perfect nonsense, 
this talk about "game protection." What right have the 
impertinent public to say to the man who has killed his game 
on his own land in what way he shall dispose of it? What 
right have they to say when he shall not kill it any more 
than when he shall not kill his hogs? What right have they, 
after he has paid his taxes, to meddle with his affairs? 
But wild animals, like trees and rivers and mountains, are 
mt uniformly distributed over this terrestrial sphere. They 
not only prefer some places to others, but can only live in 
favored spots. If Lexden will tell me how any amount of 
hard cash is going to keep caribou, for instance, aUve in a 
certain part of North Carolina that, as landowner, I have 
some interest in, or will move a little mountain scenery and 
cool rivers and such things there, he will confer a favor in- 
deed on one grateful individual. 
I am far from suggesting a definite remedy (and 1 wish to 
make myself clear on that point) when I say that it is pre- 
cisely because of this unequal distribution of the good things 
that are the work of nature, not man, that calls for a better 
understanding, not of Free Trade, nor Populism, nor pie, 
but the fundamental relations of men in an organized State. 
Each man is so busily engaged about his own affairs, he 
comes to ignore rights that are ridiculous to State because so 
evident, and substitute "legal" right, which is the creature 
of the hour, changing or needing to be changed with the 
growth of the world for moral right. "We bold these things 
to be self-evident," etc It may be incompatible with the 
increase of the human inhabitants of this earth that animals 
shall exist anywhere wild, and that they shall continue to 
exist at all only in certain circumscribed areas called "pre- 
serves." In that case why talk about "game" protection any 
more than cow protection ? Why invoke the power of the 
many (the State) to protect that which only the few can en- 
joy? The trespass laws are ample, surely. 
But mji^ purpose in writing was this: Not to get into a 
discussion of the land question, which very many have not 
considered from every point of view — if they have 
thought of it seriously at all — or into the fundamental 
difference between ownership in a book and in a piece 
of land, but to point out that the coming of the hour 
when men shall exercise the prerogatives that ownership of 
land necessarily gives, can only be postponed by mak- 
ing it unnecessary for landowners to exercise as yet the 
fullest control over their area that the law allows. That can 
only be done by enforcement of the game laws. I am sorry 
to learn that only ultimate solution lies in the trespass laws, 
and people who ought to know are saying it will come to 
that, 
At the risk of bringing another storm about my ears, I 
might suggest: if the United States Government has the 
right to prevent the cutting of timber on settled lands, why, 
when the game comes to be restricted to the preserves of a 
few, and is therefore not accessible to the "fellow with a 
gun," then can't we keep the other fellow also from 
shooting, by establishing a close season at all times? We 
could thus get even with the terrible fellows; or we could 
get even by taxing 'em pretty high. Tappan Adnet. 
GERMANY'S GAME SYSTEM. 
Germany produces more game than any other country 
in proportion to its area, says a critic in the Paris Figaro, 
quoted by the New York Tribune. There is a profitable 
trade in it, and the markets of France are largely supplied 
from this source. This abundance is not caused by any 
unusually favorable conditions of soil or of climate, but by 
wise legislation , which does not sacrifice the general in- 
terests to the pleasure of a few. 
The German law regards game as one of the useful pro- 
ducts of the soil, as property which cannot be appropriat- 
ed without the commission of theft, at least if the right to 
hunt has not been obtained through the proper channel?. 
This right can be exercised only as a result of holding a 
certain amount of land, either by lease or through owner- 
ship—about 150 hectares for each tenant. Below that 
amount all the holdings are joined together and rented by 
the community for its own profit, the proceeds being di- 
vided among the several proprietors in proportion to their 
holdings. If the land altogether is not enough to make 
one parcel of 150 hectares adjoining communities can 
make a pool. 
That is the foundation of the system.. It is absolutely 
equitable. Nobody can hunt for his own pleasure or profit 
exclusively, but nobody's property rights are infringed. 
Each person gets a profit from that which belongs to him . 
The small farmer is not, as in France, at the mercy of the 
great landed proprietor, or of the poacher, and the farrrier 
does not have to see his fields trampled by the hunters, as 
in France, where the landholdinga are too small for the 
establishment of preserves. 
The legal consequences of this state of things' are that 
the taking of game without the right to do so duly obtained 
is regarded as theft. The owner of the land cannot take 
back with one hand what he has disposed of with the 
other. He cannot hunt on his own land, having sold the 
right to do so. Game is placed under legal protection. 
There is a period when hunting is forbidden entirely; an- 
other period in which only certain kinds of game may be 
taken, or only the males. These periods are generally 
fixed by law, with modifications in various provinces. 
From March 1 to the end of June it is illegal to kill stags 
and the young male fawns; from Feb. 1 to Oct. 15 to kill 
the does. Partridges may not be shot between Dec. 1 and 
the end of August. This protection is extended to all 
kinds of game — to hares, pheasants, and even to birds of 
passage, which it is against the law to kill in the breeding 
season. All huntsmen at all times are forbidden to use 
nets, traps or snares. This prohibition also exists in 
France, but if the terms of law are severe its execution is 
not. Years ago a law was introduced into the French 
Senate founded on the German legislation, but there has 
been no discussion of it lately. 
The Germans have stopped the nocturnal exploits of 
the poachers without the aid of the law, in this way: 
There grows in that country a certain kind of forage shrub 
with which they have planted all their hunting grounds. 
This plant, precious on many accounts, is, unfortunately, 
little known in France. Its botanical name is Lathyrus 
silvestris 'iragneri. It flourishes where the soil is very 
meager, and where in summer drought spreads desolation 
and death among other plants. This shrub, of very high 
and thick growth, forms a mass impenetrable by birds of 
prey. Beneath it the game birds enjoy the additional ad- 
vantage of finding its seeds, which they are very fond of, 
and which keeps them fat. Their flesh also acquires a 
succulence and flavor therefrom altogether unique, and ad- 
judged absolutely perfect by epicures. No other plant 
combines these valuable qualities in such a measure for 
the protection of game. It is impossible for poachers to 
spread nets in a plantation of lathyrus. 
In his botanical field work in 1862, the famous agricul- 
tural writer, Wagner, observed the lathyrus growing in a 
soil where limestone and silicious formations predomin- 
ated. The vegetation of the neighborhood was dry, the 
trees and shrubs bore only scant foliage, but the lathyrus 
was growing luxuriantly. The phenomenon at once at- 
tracted the attention of a keen observer like Wagner, and 
he devoted himself to studying this woneierful shrub, 
which was so completely indifferent to the severest con- 
ditions of drought. He planted its seeds on his grounds, 
improved and perfected it, and since that time the lathy- 
rus has become almost a national plant in Germany. It 
flourishes without fertilizers in thin and arid soil. Its 
roots strike down several yards into the lower strata, 
where they seize the chlorine and potassium com;pounds 
and phosphoric acid they find there. The folmge is 
shown by analysis to contain 30 ner cent, of proteid 
matter, while the best lucern-grass shows only 16 per cent. 
The plant is eaten with avidity by horses, pigs, sheep and 
all domestic animals. 
The German law has taken great precautions to exter- 
minate poaching by striking at its root— that i.s, at the 
poacher'.? profit in selling his booty. Game is not allowed 
to be shipped by railroad, by the express department of 
the postal service, or by any public conveyance, or to be 
sold from door to door at private houses or in shops unless 
it is accompanied by a certificate as to where it came from, 
which must be signed by the landowner or lessee of the 
hunting district. It is easy to see how difficult the busi- 
ness of poaching is in Germany. It is humiliating,! it is 
dangerous, and, thanks to the numerous plantations of 
lathyrus, it is unprofitable. So it is that this nursery of 
smugglers, idlers, thieves anel assassins does not exist 
among our neighbors. Furthermore, everybody is satis- 
fied, especially the farmers, who do not have to stand by, 
as they do in France, and see the hunters — known and 
unknown alike^ — tramping over their fields, over their oats 
and buckwheat, and crushing their beets under foot. 
A TALE NOT OFTEN TOLD. 
PriTsmiEG, Pa. — Editor Forest and Stream: I notice that 
all the letters written to Forest and Stream are good ones. 
They all tell of the vast amounts of game that have been 
killer' and what a good time was had. But I never read of 
a fellow going away off to hunt and going home again 
without getting anything. The sportsmen who don't get 
any game never tell about it. But I am going to tell you 
of a party of five from the East End, who went into West 
A^'irginia, stayed two weeks, and came home with an empty 
bag. It was in November last. 
Messrs. W. J. Cullin, Jas. McNeil, A. K. Henderson, W. 
T. Eenton and myself left Pittsburg for a two-weeks' hunt 
on Middle Mountain in West Virginia, eight miles south of 
Romney. We had received a letter from a man at liom- 
ney saying that game of all kinds was very plenty; but we 
found just the reverse. 
The first day we started out to hunt wild turkeys we 
hunted all day with an experienced guide, but didn't see 
a sign of a turkey. Another day we went for deer. We 
rose at 4 A. M., got out the team and went about ten miles 
up the Potomac to the Trough. The guide placed us on 
the stands and the drivers went in to drive out a herd of 
deer. We watched all day and only one poor little doe 
came out, which we did not shoot at. And thus it was, 
day after day. There was plenty of good hunting but very 
poor finding. The only thing we had which was anything 
like sport at all was rabbit-hunting. The rabbits were 
plentiful, an,d with a good dog we could get all the shoot- 
ing we wanted at this kind of game. We had three good 
bird dogs, but they were of no use, for there were no tiuail 
in this country, and pheasants were as few as the teeth of 
a hen. 
It is my opinion that this part of West Virginia is going 
on its past reputation, for I don't believe there is a half 
dozen deer in the county, and aa for wild turkey, I only 
saw two small flocks of about eight or ten each, and I 
hunted the mountain for miles in ever direction. 
But the Mr. Johnson, with whom we stayed, didn't 
forget to charge us the regular hotel rate for board 
(although it is only a farmhouse), and extra charges for 
taking us to and from the depot, and for the team and 
driver the day we went to the Trough. Some of our 
party had been there before, and were very much sur- 
prised at the bill, as all the extras were unusual, 
I hope this may be of benefit to some hunter who con- 
templates going to this locality, and may save some one a 
big disappointment. It is only wasting time and money to 
go to Hampshire county, West Virginia, for game. 
I would like to hear through these columns of the suc- 
cess of other sportsmen who have been in West Virginia 
of late years. I haven't seen a letter about West Virginia 
in these columns for a long time. Let us hear the good or 
the bad. If it is good, it may benefit someone; if bad, it 
may save some one a disappointment. J. K. T. 
INDIANS AND DUCK EGGS. 
BALTiMOiiK, April 21 — Editor Forest and Stream: Some 
time since I noticed a letter of Mr. John Henry Keene, Jr., 
of this city, to the Earl of Aberdeen, Governor-General of 
Canada, in relation to the importation of the eggs of the 
wild duck from the Dominion into the States. 
The question is an important one and deserves the careful 
consideration of every sportsman. For a number of years I 
shot ducks on the Chesapeake and its tributaries, and noticed 
a falling oft' in the number flying from year to year. Local 
causes could not account for this. The eiucks were not fly- 
ing. Why ? 
In 1868 I made a tour through Canada from Quecnstown 
to the upper waters of the Saguenay, following the shores of 
the St. Lawrence. On the way I conversed fully with 
gentlemen acquainted with the game and fishing found on 
the river and its tributaries, and with men who as habitants 
or voyagers lived on its shores or traveled its waters, 
The great marshes along the shores were pointed out to me: 
as the breeding places of the wild duck, and I remarked that 
their extent gave them ample ground for the purpose and I 
could not understand whj' they did not visit us as formerly. 
Then it was explained to me that their nests were robbed by 
the natives for the purpose of getting their eggs, which were 
eaten. Nothing was said of the importation into this coun- 
try, but simply that the inhabitants hunted them as a meftna 
of subsistence. 
For whatever purpose the eggs are sought it matters not. 
The ducks are disturbed on the breeding grounds, the eggs 
are removed. The young are comparatively few aad Jar 
between, and the manly sport of the blind and the point is 
fast becoming a thing of the past. A. C. Tkippe, 
[There is no question that the Indians in the North, both 
East and West, uae vast quantities of wild duck egga for 
food. But as they have always done so, this consumption is 
no new factor in the problem of duck protection. It may be 
a more serious one now than formerly, since with the dimin- 
ished supply every agency of diminution counts more than 
it did when the supply was abundant. The point on which 
Mr. Keene is seeking information, however, is as lo whether 
a large consumption of duck egga by civil zed man for con- 
fectionery purposes has been added to this consumption by 
the savage. As was said in our issue of April 17, we can 
find no evidence n New York of any such trade,] 
