Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Ykak. 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Sis Months, 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1897. 
VOL. XLVm.— No. 25, 
N». 346 Beoad-wat, New York. 
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. 
Attention is directed to the new form of address labels on the 
wrappers of subscribers' copies. Thie label siiows the date of the 
close of the term for which the subscription is paid. 
The receipt of the paper with such dated address label constitutes 
the subscriber's receipt for money sent tons for a new or renewed 
subscription. Unless specially requested to do so, we do not send 
separate receipts. 
Subscribers are asked to note on the wrapper the date of expira- 
tion of subscription; and to remit promptly for renewal, that delays 
may oe avoided. 
For prospectus aud advertising rates see page ill. 
And let me add this more, he that views the 
ancient ecclesiastical canons, shall find hunting; to 
he forbidden to churchmen, as being; a turbulent, 
toilsome, perplexing; recreation; and shall find 
ang-ling; allowed to clergymen, as being a harm- 
less recreation, a recreation that invites them to 
contemplation and quietness, Walton. 
m forest and Stream's Platform PlanK. 
" T/ie sale of game should be prohibited at all. seasons" 
NAILS DRIVEN IN 1897.— No.* VI. 
COZ,ORAJ)0, 
Act of April 16, 1897.— Sec. a7. It shall be unlawful at 
any time to sell or expose for sale, or to cause or suffer to be 
sold or exposed for sale, or to kill, capture or otlierwise tahe 
wltli intent to sell, or to offer to any common carrier for 
8liil)ment, or to ship by any common carrier with intent to 
sell, the head, hide (tanned or untanned), horns or meat of 
any animal mentioned In this act. 
TEE FOREST LAKE GLJJB CASE. 
"Within recent years wildwood lake properties have 
appreciated in value in an enormous degree. The in- 
creased popularity of angling, the growth of the outing 
idea, the participation of the family in the sports of the 
forest and stream, and the tendency toward club life and 
fishing preserves— all these have created a demand for 
fishing waters adapted to club purposes; and aa the avail- 
able lakes have been taken up and the number remaining 
for such purposes has decreased, the market price has ad- 
vanced. An instance of the worth of such properties is 
afforded by the case of Forest Lake Club. 
Forest Lake is a charming sheet of water, situated 
amid the hills in the southeastern corner of the town of 
Claverack, in Columbia county, New York. It is eleven 
miles from Hudson, and three and one-half hour's ride 
from New York city by the Harlem Eailroad. The lake, 
with the entire land surrounding it, is owned by the For- 
est Lake Club, of Hudson. The organization of the club 
and the acquisition of the property were due chiefly to the 
enterprise of the president, Mr. G. Hills, who was the first 
to discover the charms of the lake, and to recognize its 
adaptability to club purposes. 
The lake is 1,325ft. above tide-water, and from the basin 
in which it nestles between the forest-covered hills a far- 
stretching prospect is commanded over a landscape of hill 
and valley and mountain slopes. The entire range of the 
Taghkanic Mountains is in view, with the Berkshires be- 
yond. Among the summits is that of Monument Mountain, 
on the top of which is the monument which marks the 
meeting there of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New 
York. In all the view from the club house of well-named 
Forest Lake not a house is to be seen, and from the entire 
lake circuit only one house is visible, and that fifteen miles 
away. Here, within a short drive or bicycle spin from 
business, the members find themselves indeed in the 
woods, with the perfect isolation and freedom which others 
less favored must travel far to secure. A model club house 
has been provided, and there are boats and boat house, an 
ice-house, and all the conveniences and equipments of a 
sportsmen's club. The lake is well stocked with small- 
mouth black bass, brown trout and pickerel. 
, This was the situation when, not long ago, the thriving 
village of Philmont, looking about for a water supply, cast 
covetous eyes on Forest Lake. In this body of pure water 
high up among the hills, the town authorities saw a 
natural reservoir having a fall of 150ft. to the highest point 
in the village. It was admirably suited to their purpose 
and they determined to have it. The first advance to the 
club was an offer of §500 for the privilege of taking water 
from the lake. Kegardful of the law governing such mat- 
ters, under which the village could have recourse to con- 
demnation proceedings to acquire the lake for a water 
supply, the club in turn offered the village $500 to keep 
hands off. The Philmont people then raised their 
offer to $1,000, while the club held out for $5,000, 
and offered to go through the form of condemnation 
proceedings with an understanding that the Com- 
mission should make the award in that sum. This 
was refused; and the village then had recourse to con- 
demnation proceedings. Judge Chester, of Albany, ap- 
pointed as commissioners Messrs. J. H. Peck, of Troy, and 
Melius and Meade, of Albany. The Forest Lake Club, 
concerned more for the principle involved than for the 
actual money at stake, summoned expert witnesses exper- 
ienced in buying and selling lake properties and versed in 
their values as summer resorts, as club properties, and for 
reservoir purposes. The valuations which these experts 
put upon the lake and surrounding lands ranged from 
115,000 to $25,000. The commissioners rendered their 
finding last month, awarding the club $9,000 as compensa- 
tion for the damage caused to the lake by the raising and 
lowering of the waters, and for the impairment of its com- 
mercial value. 
TBE NEW 70BK ASSOCIATION. 
A FEW years ago the annual conventions of the New 
York State Association for the Protection of Fish and 
Game were so exclusively given up to trap-shooting that 
all other purposes were lost sight of or systematically ig- 
nored. To remedy this condition of affairs the Association 
was reorganized, on a plan hy which provision was made 
for two meetings in each year, one purely deliberative in 
the winter, and another for a shooting tournament in the 
summer. An important and very effective device for giv_ 
ing each of these two activities its fullest scope was the 
provision of two sets of ofiicials, so that both interests 
might be maintained by a guiding control actually and 
actively concerned in their promotion. The plan has 
worked extremely well; the January meetings in Syracuse 
have been well attended, and the June tournaments under 
the management of various clubs have been large and suc- 
cessful events. 
A feeling has been growing that it would be expedient, 
when the time should come, to separate the two activities 
entirely; to make the State Association for the Protection 
of Fish and Game simply and purely what its name im- 
plies, and to give over the tournaments to a new and sepa- 
rate and wholly independent organization. The time for 
this, it is thought, has come; and a proposition to that 
end was made by President Gavitt at the Auburn meet' 
ing' last week, when a committee was appointed to put the 
proposal into effect. 
Such an absolute division is doubtless desirable. For 
one thing, it relieves that certain air of grotesqueness 
whicli attaches to a trap-shooting meeting held under a 
long oflicial name whose fitness and meaning are, under 
the circumstances, a mystery to the uninitiated. The 
New York Shooting Association, or Shooting League, or 
Trap League, or soine such title, will be' less cumbersome 
and will have the merit of pertinency and meaning. We 
anticipate for both organizations — the old and the new- 
many years of useful activity and successful achievement. 
PUBLIC FISH IN PRIVATE WATERS. 
Co^'NECTictiT has now joined the list of those States in 
which the Fish Commissioners are forbidden to stock 
private waters with fish provided out of the public funds. 
A law was enacted at the late session of the Legislature, 
modeled upon statutes in force elsewhere, making public 
any waters supplied with fish by the Commission. The 
purpose of such a restriction is of course to put a damper 
upon the numerous owners of trout streams and bass lakes 
who are eager to have them stocked for their own private 
advantage at State expense. Most people count as clear 
gain and honestly come by whatever they can get for 
nothing from the public Treasury, whether a salary for 
services they do not render, smuggled goods, seeds from 
Washington or fish fry from the State hatchery. Applica- 
tion blanks for fish fry usually contain a statement that the 
waters which the applicant desires to have stocked are 
public and not private; but experience has shown that 
some men holding high positions in the commercial com- 
munity will cheerfully lie about this, and are not to be 
trusted. The system of making stocked waters open to 
the public is the first successful expedient to get the better 
of such individuals. 
It has been suggested by an authority in whom we re* 
pose confidence that in making such a provision, even with 
so good a purpose, a Legislature may have framed a law 
which will not stand the test of the courts, since it might, 
under certain conditions, involve an unjust interference 
with common-law rights. 
For instance, if one of several landowners, through 
whose domains a trout stream runs, should stock his part 
of the stream- with fish from the State hatchery, he would 
at the same time be stocking the entire stream, both on his 
own property and on the adjoining property of his neigh- 
bors as well, so that under the action of the law their 
waters as well as his would be declared open to the public, 
and their right to forbid trespass would thereby be invali- 
dated. Whatever might be the merits of such a case, the 
principle remains that public funds should provide public 
fish for public waters, and private waters should be replen- 
ished at private expense. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Among the historic hoaxes of our times was that recently 
perpetrated upon the Treasury Department at Washington 
by a chemist who claimed to have discovered the philoso- 
pher's stone, or a process of manufacturing gold from baser 
metals. As a result of investigation we are gravely assured 
by the Treasury ofiicials that there is nothing in the 
scheme; it woii't work. The world will have to wait a 
while longer for the secret of transmuting common clay 
into gold; and yet we need not despair, for transformations 
not less remarkable are accomplished every day. It is an 
easy trick for an Adirondack hotel chef to transmute close» 
time venison into "mutton," and for a New York restau* 
rant-keeper to change common American quail into im* 
ported "royal birds." Such culinary achievements will 
soon be counted among the lost arts in Colorado if the neyt 
law shall be enforced, which forbids including on bills'of- 
fare any game killed in the State, whether designated by 
its own proper name or by any false name. 
In Louisville and Kansas City the art has promoted in^ 
dustries of large commercial importance. To the office, of 
our frequent contributor, J. M. Rose, of Little Eock, Ark. 
repaired the other day a fisherman, for advice about net 
fishing. He wanted to seine Arkansas waters for shovel- 
bill catfish, buffalo, gars and drum, for the supply of facto- 
ries in Louisville and Kansas City, with which he had 
contracts to furnish 5,0001bs. of such fish daily, to be; made 
up into canned Columbia River salmon. The Arkansas 
law was an obstacle to the proposed seining; but the cat- 
fish stock of the Southwest is unexhaustible, and the 
supply of salmon need never give out. 
The abbrev iation of the Maine moose hunting season to 
the last fifteen days of October, and the prohibition of deer 
hounding in the Adirondacks, have combined to divert 
from those hunting regions a large number of sportsmen 
who are turning to Canada for their fall campaign. The 
outlook is for a great incursion of American hunters into 
the Provinces, 
The plan of Government game preserves outlined in 
bur issue of June 5 by Mr. W. G, Van Name has attracted 
wide attention and the indorsement of favorable opinion. 
Last week we printed comments upon it from Mr, Robert 
B, Lawrence, chairman of the Committee on Legislation of 
the New York Association, and of Mr, S, F. Fullerton, Exec- 
utive Agent of the Minnesota Commission, To-day we 
publish other communications from others whose opinions 
are not less entitled to respect. Next week we shall have 
a paper on the game parks of Ontario, written by Dr, G, 
A, MacCallum, President of the Fish and Game Commis- 
sion of the Province, in which it is pointed out that what 
Mr, Van Name proposes for the United States has already 
been accomplished in a measure in the Provinces. 
Minnesota has abolished its discrimination against non- 
residents. Deer hunting visitors will no longer be re- 
quired to take out licenses. Future effort will be directed 
in the line of preventing the marketing of game. There 
is probably in the whole Union no point outside of No. 
346 Broadway, New York, where faith in the eflBlciency 
and sufficiency of the Foeest and Stream's Platform Plank 
is firmer than in the office of the Minnesota Commission. 
