Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
''™''^Ulo™;°$£''-^''°"f NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1897, 
j VOL. XLTX— No. S5. 
j No. 846 Broad-way, New York. 
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IT WILL TELL THE STORY. 
The Fokkst and Stream in its fifty-two weekly numbers 
for 1898 will tell the Sportsman's Story of the year — his 
aspirations, enterprises, adventures, successes and achieve- 
ments; his disappointments, reverses and defeats; his 
pleasures, joys, satisfactions and sorrows; in short, the 
story of his activities by flood and field, on the plain and 
the mountain, in the North and the South, the East and 
the West. 
No necessity of saying that the story will be brimful of 
interest from beginning to end, from January to Decem- 
ber; nor is any assurance needed that it will be worth the 
telling, worth the printing, and worth the reading. 
THE NEW YORK LEAGUE 
At the meeting of the New York State Association for 
the Protection of Fish and Game, in Syracuse last week, 
the name was changed to the New York State Fish, Game 
and Forest League. A new constitution was adopted, one 
interesting feature of which is that it commits the organi- 
zation exclusively to efibrt in the lines of fish and game 
protection, excluding altogether the trap-shooting activi- 
ties hitherto promoted by it. This may be considered a radi- 
cal step, but in reality it is hardly a new departure, for 
during the last five years the Association has been work- 
ing toward just this point. 
Formed in the fifties as a union of clubs and individuals 
interested in securing game laws and their enforcement, 
the meetings of the Association were in the first years 
conventions for discussion of the concerns of protection. 
Then shooting at the trap came in as a diversion from the 
more serious affairs of the meeting. In time the shooting 
competitions monopolized the attention of delegates. 
Then in 1892, at the instance chiefly of Gen. D. H. Bruce, 
of Syracuse, an effort was begun to restore the Association 
to its original character and purpose. In that year a form 
of constitution was adopted which provided for two meet- 
ings each year: one in the winter to consider legislation 
and protection, and another in the summer for trap- 
shooting. The plan of reorganization, it was explained at 
the time, "makes ample provision for the two purposes of 
tbe Association — game protection and trap-shooting. In 
the practical conduct of the Association each one of these 
interests is given its own place, but the two are kept 
entirely separate. Provision is made for the fullest 
activity in each, but neither one is permitted to conflict 
with the other." 
Under this plan both of the annual meetings have been 
well attended, and practical working has demonstrated 
the wisdom of the arrangement. Now the protective 
branch of the Association has gone a step further and 
separated itself entirely from the tournament interests, 
and has emphasized the new departm-e by the adoption 
of a distinctive name. The Rochester Rod and Gun 
Club, under whose management the Association tourna- 
ment will be held next summer, declares itself to be 
strictly in the line of apostolic succession and proposes to 
hold to the old name. This is something which is quite 
immateral. Under the old name or a new one the New 
York summer tournaments or State shoots will continue 
to be important and successful meetings in the trap-shoot- 
ing world. But, questions of name and succession aside, it 
is undeniably true that the two associations are better 
than one when the two fields of their activity 
diverse. We hope to see both well supported by the al- 
legiance and active membership of all clubs and associa- 
tions interested. 
THE FLAYQROTIND OP A GREAT OITY. 
The mammoth city of Brooklyn, separated from New 
York by a neck of salt water called the East River, has 
been called the boardinghouse of New York. This is gen- 
erally accepted as a feeble attempt at levity, but one who 
watches the rush to New York in the morning hours and the 
return rush in the evening will he convinced that it is a fact. 
But as a fact it carries no stigma with it. On the contrary, 
so envious did New Yorkers become that they concurred ia 
making it a part of Greater New York. With much 
more appropriateness would the rest of Long Island be 
called the playground of New York. Probably no section 
of an equal area in America has such a diversity of sports 
in existence within its limits. No place has carried to a 
higher degree of perfection the technique of the sport, 
the completeness of costume and accessories of the sport 
There are lovely roads, smooth and well finished, leading 
away through meadows and woodland far away to the 
beach where the salt water beats ceaselessly, or into the 
woodlands where dwell the deer, squirrel, quail and ruffed 
grouse. And on pleasant days these roads are fairly alive 
with wheelmen. The fellow and his best girl on a tandem, 
dressed in the most correct costume; the wheelmen and 
women in ones, twos, threes and squads; the family, men, 
women and children ; the bicycle club out on a run — the 
rider will meet and pass in endless variation during a day's 
run, till he wonders where so many wheels could be made, 
and being made, where all the money could be obtained to 
buv them. 
Through this beautiful land of hill and vale, woods and 
meadows, with its ever-changing picturesque scenery, 
threads of clear water run bountifully wherever the 
numerous miniature watersheds and pure springs sustain 
them. These numerous brooks, which so regularly seam 
the surface of Long Island, are the home of the trout, 
which contribute so much to the fame of the island among 
fishermen. In season they swarm to its brooks and creeks, 
though not as men who go whither they list, since most of 
the trout waters are private property. Broad as is the 
playground, it would soon be entirely overrun and its 
waters despoiled were it open freely to all. But surround- 
ing the playground are the free waters of the ocean, 
whereon thousands of people find sport and recreation, 
and a reward of effort mote to their liking; for the fish 
are larger and more in keeping with hungry stomachs to 
be filled than with delicate palates to be pleased. Their 
methods are far from being related to the refinement of 
the angler's art in luring the wary trout with the decep- 
tive fly, yet they are such as fit their capabilities of enjoy- 
ment and their needs inseparable from it. There are 
streams and ponds and lakes, and the ocean, with fish 
tiny and great. Could any son of Izaak Walton ask for 
more? 
The yachtsman swarms about the waters of the play- 
ground. The duck shooter too has his place and his oppor- 
tunities. It is a finely fitted playground, since it contains 
the best of nature and the best of art. As the wheelman 
rides along one of the best-made roads in the country, he 
may be skirting along the forest wherein the deer freely 
roam, or he may skirt along the shore of the great ocean 
and sniff tbe breeze untainted from the touch of land. 
Several packs of beagles are kept on Long Island for the 
rare sport which they afford, and thess miniature hounds 
peal forth their chorus with as much merriment and earnest- 
ness of purpose as do their greater brothers, the foxhounds, 
which also have their owners and admirers, who follow them 
in duly sportsmanlike form. 
Everywhere is there something symbolical of the healthful 
relaxation and diversion of the dwellers in a great city. 
There is to be seen the protest against the ceaseless confine- 
ment to business routine — the struggle for open fields, clear 
air and personal freedom. 
One who rode from Long Island City to New York on any 
pleasant afternoon this fall could not have failed to perceive 
indications of the love of sport and its exercise. He would 
have seen a number of enthusiastic sportsmen in earnest con- 
versation concerning how they captured their buck in the 
deer section of Long Island ; seated nearby was the thought- 
Hful sharpshooter, returning from testing his rifle on the long 
range at Creed moor; also the bird hunter with his tired dog 
and a bunch of quail, the latter the crowning glory of a hard 
day's work ; the less pretentious hunter with rabbit dog, and 
rabbits taken on the plains; the man with shotgun" and no 
dog, yet laden with ducks from the waters of the Great 
South Biy; the polo player just from his reckless riding on 
the polo grounds; the golfer from Shinnecock and Oakdale, 
with the formidable array of implements of his sport; the 
noisy boy fresh from the ball field; the padded, brawny 
youth with the subdued, weary look, indicating a fierce 
struggle with the football; the rider from the Meadowbrook 
hunt, and the trap-shooter from one or other of the various 
clubs. 
HOGS AS HRAFT ANIMALS. 
Although dogs have been in common use as draft ani- 
mals from time immemorial in the vast frigid regions of 
North America, it is safe to assert that but a relatively 
small number of people in the United States were aware 
of that fact. At best, it was to them a mere historical 
novelty ; but from that it suddenly developed into a mat- 
ter of material interest. Through the recent exodus to the 
gold region of Alaska and Northwest Canada consequent 
to the news of the great richness of those sections, the 
difficulties of Arctic travel and the great value of dogs in 
it for draft purposes have been brought into direct public 
attention and consideration. The demand, by men bound 
Klondikeward, for such dogs as were thought to have the 
requisite size, strength and endurance, also brought to 
public notice the dearth of material on hand to supply the 
demand. Out of the hundreds of thousands of dogs in the 
States — curs and others — there were but a small percent- 
age qualified physically for draft purposes. 
In the United States there is an abundance of vegetable 
food, and the larger and stronger herbivorous animals are 
consequently used for draft purposes to the exclusion of 
all carnivorous animals. On the contrary, the Arctic 
region, with its long winter, heavy snows and dearth of 
vegetable food, has come to be considered as being pecu- 
liarly fitted for the employment of the dog as a means of 
transportation, or rather that region is considered as being 
unfitted for the employment of other animals. The inter- 
esting description in our kennel columns, however, proves 
that dogs can be economically employed for draft purposes 
by people who have a small business and short hauls to 
make even in some sections of country free from the rigors 
of the Arctic winter. They fit in in the domestic econ- 
omy of those sections to a nicety — such countries as have 
a dense population, many small enterprises, good roads, 
and a limited land area. 
In the United States, where food, vegetable and animal, 
is abundant, and roads as a general thing are not of the 
best, the use of the dog as a draft animal, so far as general 
use is concerned, is far in the future. From a business 
standpoint he is, without qualification, an appendage to ■ 
small enterprises in other than the frigid regions. 
However small may be the business start of the average 
American citizen, he never contemplates that it will be ' 
small much beyond the starting point; nor does he care 
to have transportation one whit lower in class than his 
neighbor; hence the use of the dog as a means of trans- 
portation in the States may be considered as still remain- 
ing in the realm of novelty. 
Game Commissioner John W. Titcomb, of Vermont, 
holds a theory that a requirement restricting deer hunters 
to the killing of those only which have horns makes for 
the security of human life, since the law — sometimes — 
prompts a hunter to greater caution in determining 
exactly what he is shooting at. In Vermont this year the 
number of deer actually reported by postmasters as killed 
in their towns was 103, and the estimated number killed 
was 140, while only one man was killed. This is a much 
brighter record than those of some other States, and if the 
antler law did it, let us have like laws elsewhere. 
It is only the tyro who imagines that he knows it all. 
The older one grows and the more he learns, and the bet- 
ter Ms comprehension of the vastness of what there is to 
learn in any given field, the more does he realize his 
ignorance. This holds true with all the arts and sciences, 
including black bass fishing. Some of the fruits of long 
study of that perplexing and bafiiing creature are given this 
week by our contributor Shaganoss. His paper will ap- 
peal to old bass fishermen; it should prompt some of those 
■who read it to give us their own experience. 
