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Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
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HKMs.w ayka R . iocts . A c,,v a NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 18 98. { * ^LS^nSn^m. 
Six Months, $2. ( 7 ' 
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The Creeks regularly make a Burnt Offering of 
what they conceive to he the most delicious Parts 
of every Animal taken in Hunting, before they 
presume to taste a Mouthful, The Parts they 
commit to the Flames are proportional to the Size 
of the Animal, probably about 2 or 3 lb. from a 
Buffalo, and still less in a regular gradation down 
to the smallest Quadrupede, Fish or Bird. 
- John Pope's Tour, J 792. 
FROM PLAGUE TO PROFIT, 
The problem of abating the rabbit nuisance of New 
Zealand, after having for so long taxed the ingenuity 
oi the world, promises to be solved by the realization 
that the rabbit has a commercial value. The industry 
of converting the game — or vermin — into meat for ex- 
port to European markets has assumed large propor- 
tions. One shipper was recently reported to be in receipt 
of from 15,000 to 20,000 rabbits per day, and to be paying 
to the trappers wages aggregating £800 and £1,000 per 
week. Thus has a plague been converted into a profit 
In this country a nuisance which has destroyed hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars' worth of food fishes in 
inland waters is the refuse sawdust from sawmills. The 
sawdust is dumped into the stream as the readiest mode 
oi disposing of it. Carried down by the current, when 
in suspension it kills the fish by lodging in and irritat- 
ing their gills; and sinking to the bottom it overwhelms 
and ruins the spawning beds, and destroys both the 
aquatic vegetation in which the fish live and the minute 
forms of life upon which they subsist. Fish commis- 
sion after fish commission has investigated the sawdust 
nuisance, and various expedients have been resorted to 
for its suppression. Laws have been enacted only to be 
ignored or set at defiance. Despite the known ruinous 
effects of sawdust, mill owners have gone on practically 
without let or hindrance dumping it into fishing waters 
and destroying native resources of inestimable value. 
Sawdust has been a waste product; the thing to do with 
a waste product is to get rid of it in the easiest possible 
way. If sawdust were found to have a value, the prob- 
lem of its" disposition would be solved? and we would 
hear no more of it as a fish destroying agency. 
If the reported discovery which a Baltimore inventor, 
Mr. Victor L, Emerson, is reported to have made shall 
prove, to be what is claimed for it, such a solution is 
just what we may look for. Mr. Emerson has de- 
vised a process for carbonizing sawdust and extracting 
the by-products. Certain mill owners on the Ottawa 
River, Canada, who had been ordered by the Govern- 
ment to discontinue dumping sawdust into the river, 
sought the services of Mr. Emerson, and built a plant 
for his experiments on a large scale. According to 
reports, the result of these tests is such as to have 
proved that "the 500 tons or more of sawdust and refuse 
that these mills have been throwing away daily for years 
have suddenly been discovered to be worth $30 a ton — 
in other words, equal in value to the highest grade of 
gold quartz." Iron and steel smelting works, white 
lead and printers' ink manufactories and calcium carbide 
works are to be operated in connection with the central 
plant; and the city is to be lighted and heated from the 
hydrogen gas given off during the process of carboniza- 
tion. In short, there is to be a sawdust bonanza of the 
biggest kind; and so cheaply are all the products to be 
obtained that the capitalists behind the scheme already 
announce a determination to restrict production so as to 
provide against glutting the market and destroying 
prices. This indeed is the only somber shade in the 
golden prospect. Thirty-dollar-a-ton sawdust will be 
confined like gold to certain favored districts. The com- 
mon sawdust pouring out every day from countless mills 
in countless tons into countless waters is still and still 
■will be the worthless plague it has ever been. 
THE FOREST RESER VES, 
An interesting and surprising indication of the recent 
change of public sentiment in the West concerning 
forestry matters comes to us in a report from Washing- 
ton. 
It will be remembered that when President Cleveland 
originally set aside the thirteen forest reservations in 
the West, no portion of the community was more out- 
raged and none more bitter in its condemnation* of this 
action than the people residing in the Black Hills. The 
columns of the local newspapers fairly overflowed with 
editorials on the subject, and the Senators and Repre- 
sentatives from South Dakota had great difficulty in find- 
ing language severe enough to filly describe the injury 
that had been done to their constituents. The South 
Dakotans were urged to be patient and to take a little 
time to think about the matter, but they declined to do 
so. Now, however, we are told on high Washington 
authority that the people of the Black Hills have peti- 
tioned the authorities to have 'the size of the Black Hills 
forest reservation increased by 4,400,000 acres; that the 
surveys have been made; that Senator Pettigrew has 
washed off his war paint and laid aside his arms, declar- 
ing that the increase should be made; that the surveys 
for this increase have been completed, and bave been 
approved by the Secretary of the Interior. 
We believe that the time is coming, and coming soon, 
when the forest reserves of the Western country will 
have no more ardent defenders than those who dwell 
on and about them — the very people who a couple of 
years ago declared that the Federal Government had" 
determined to create widespread ruin over the whole 
West. The change which has taken place in die feeling 
about these forest reserves is encouraging not only as 
to this especial matter, but also as giving evidence of 
the common sense of the American people when they 
have had time for sober second thought. 
It is objected by some persons that the forest service 
is being turned into a huge political machine, which 
will be used to control elections in the States and Terri- 
tories where these reservations exist. If this should 
prove true, it is greatly to be deplored; nevertheless the 
important thing is that we have now a forest service — 
a force of men appointed to care for our forests; whereas 
formerly there was no one whose duty it was to do this. 
If for any reason this service is not all that could be 
desired — as, of course, it is not — it is our business to 
strive by patient effort to reform it, and to make it as 
nearly perfect as may be possible. 
At the head of the Forestry Bureau of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture we have perhaps the most com- 
petent person in the country, and the steps which he is 
taking for interesting and instructing people in forestry 
matters, both in the East and in the West, cannot fail 
to have a most beneficial effect on the public mind. 
SN'AP SHOTS. 
An exhibition of live snakes Ts an amusement novelty 
which is just now engaging the attention of New 
York. Specimens of numerous venomous and harm- 
less species have been brought together from the snake 
thickets and holes and dens of the earth, and put on 
show in a public hall, to which visitors are cheerfully 
paying the admission fee. Incidentally human nature 
is on exhibition too; for nothing in the natural history of 
snakes is more curious than this fact, that while man- 
kind abhors and fears the serpent, it cannot resist go- 
ing to gaze upon the object of its dread and disgust. 
AVhatever may be the snake's powers of fascination over 
birds and animals, it has had for man in all times and in 
all places a compelling interest, a repellant attractiveness. 
There are some people who, like Mr. Fred Mather, make 
pets of harmless snakes, and others who, like Dr. Dit- 
mars, handle with composure and immunity the poison- 
ous species; but such persons are the exception and not 
the rule. As for petting garter snakes and other in- 
nocent and beautiful creatures, they have reason and 
common sense on their side; but even reason will not 
avail against the stronger instinct of dread and alarm. 
Witness the confession made by Coahoma the other 
day. Here is a man who has for years been schooling 
himself to overcome the instinctive repugnance to 
snakes; who has by precept and example sought to 
stay the heel that would bruise the serpent's head; and 
yet in spite of it all is moved to acknowledge, "but reason 
will succumb to its parent, animal instinct; and the re- 
pulsiveness of snakes is as strong as ever." 
Mr. C. H. Townsend, of the United States Fish Com- 
mission, who was deputed to investigate the condition of 
seal life on the Pribilof Islands during the past season, 
found the percentage of decrease of the seals more notice- 
able than in previous years, owing to the more marked 
effect of pelagic sealing on the diminished herd. The 
decrease of seals born on the island was for 1898 22 per 
cent, since 1897, against 11 per cent, for 1897 since that 
of 1896. A rational scheme of seal ranching is in course 
of development on the islands, but Mr. Townsend re- 
ports this will be powerless to preserve the seals from 
extermination if pelagic catching shall be continued. 
Should pelagic sealing cease, and land sealing be- suffi- 
ciently restricted, the present stock of seals is such that 
at no distant day the supply might be restored to former 
proportions. 
The rapidity with which a water or land species which 
has been pursued to the- point of extermination will, 
when that pursuit ceases, multiply and replenish the 
earth, is one of the surprising phenomena of nature's 
resourcefulness. The beavers is a familiar example. In 
one region and another where it has been trapped un- 
til becoming so scarce that trapping became unprofit- 
able and was abandoned, the unmolested remnant has 
thrived and developed into numerous colonies. We are 
told by returning moose hunters from the New Bruns- 
wick woods that the law on beaver in that Province, 
which has prevented their capture for several years, has 
resulted in restoring the species again to commercial 
importance. The law is up this year, and numerous 
trappers who have marked the beai^er colonies are pre- 
paring to take them, 
The principle is illustrated on a large scale by the 
fluctuations of the whale fisheries, which, after having 
sunk to a point where the pursuit was no longer profit- 
able, and was accordingly abandoned, have now come up 
again and assumed a place in the world's commerce, to 
be measured by the fact that four Arctic whalers which 
reached .San Francisco the other day brought into port 
catches aggregating a value of $750,000. And in the. 
Antarctic another illustration is found in the case of the 
sea lions, which, having been depleted far below the 
point of profit to the sealers, have so far recovered that 
an expedition recently made for their oil proved a re- 
munerative venture. 
"Spoodler" is a fictitious name, but that is the only 
fictitious element of the moose episode reported in our 
game columns. The case was actually tried in court, and 
this is a transcript of the proceedings. To a New Bed- 
ford, Mass., man, we believe, belongs the credit of 
demonstrating to unsuccessful moose hunters the happy 
expedient of having their game snared and made secure 
for them by the guide in advance. This is a "dead sure 
thing," 'warranted to assure the veriest duffer his just 
quota of moose meat, if only the officious game wardens 
would not intervene as they did with the New Bedford 
man arid the defendant in the Nova Scotia case. It 
takes all sorts of people to make up the world, and the 
Spoodlers are ever with us. 
The signs of the times point to Alaska as the coming 
big game country to be exploited by the American 
sportsman. Indeed it is the only fresh territory left for 
him without invading the remote British Possessions. 
The big moose heads sent down from Alaska have ex- 
cited the envy of scores of hunters; and since there are 
bigger moose heads in the woods than have ever been 
brought out of them, we confidently expect some day to 
illustrate in the Forest and Stream a giant exceeding 
the seventy-two-inch head shown in our issue of October 
22; and to print with it the portrait of the man who 
brings it down. 
Announcement is given elsewhere of the fifth annual 
Sportsmen's Show, given by the National Sportsmen's 
Association, in Madison Square Garden next March. 
The exposition will be modeled in large measure upon 
the lines of the Boston show, which was so popular and 
profitable; and for the New York enterprise a similar 
success may be anticipated. 
