Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Teems, $4 a Ve»r. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1898. 
j VOL. LL— No. 27. 
( No. 846 Broadwav, New Yor 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not bt re- 
garded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of current topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
correspondents. 
- Subscriptions may begin at any time. Terms: For single 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iv. 
Che Torest and Stream Platform PlanK. 
"The sale of game should be forbidden at all seasons." 
—Forest and Stream, Feb. 3, 1894. 
OUR AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHS. 
We print for the last time the announcement of prizes 
offered by the Forest and Stream for amateur work 
with the camera. 
Photographs should be submitted for competition by 
December 31st. Any mailed on that date and showing 
post-mark of December 31st will be eligible for competi- 
tion. 
The prizes will be divided into three series: (1) for 
live wild game; (2) for game in parks; (3) for other 
subjects relating to shooting and fishing. 
For live game photographs three prizes are of- 
fered, the first of $50, the second of $25, and the third 
of $10. 
(2) For live game in parks, for the best picture, a 
prize of $10. 
(3) For the best pictures relating to Forest and 
Stream's field — -shooting and fishing, the camp, camp- 
ers and camp life, sportsman travel by, land and water, 
incidents of field and stream— a first prize of $20, a second 
of $15, a third of $10, and for fourth place two prizes of 
$5 each. 
There is no restriction as to the time nor as to where 
the pictures have been made or may be made. 
All work must be original; that is to say, it must not 
have been submitted to any other competition nor have 
been published. 
There are no restrictions as to the make or style of 
camera, nor as to size of plate. 
A competitor need not be .a subscriber to the Forest 
and Stream. 
All work must be that of amateurs. 
The photographs will be submitted to a committee, who. 
in making their award, will be instructed to take into con- 
sideration the technical merits of the work as a photo- 
graph, its artistic qualities and other things being equal, 
the unique and difficult nature of the subject. 
Photographs should be marked for identification with 
initials or a pseudonym only, and with each photograph 
should be given, answering to the initials, the name of 
sender, title of view, locality, date and names of camera, 
and plate or film. 
THE ADVANCE OF AN IDEA. 
All serious students of efficient game protective sys- 
tems, and there are many such to-day, should read very 
carefully the new law for Colorado, prepared by Mr. D. C. 
Beaman. A synopsis of the measure is printed in our 
game columns. It is a carefully considered and well 
matured act, on which Mr- Beaman tells us he has been 
engaged for several years. There is in it nothing fanci- 
ful or crude; each division and every section of the 
several divisions constitute an harmonious whole; and the 
text is in its entirety the most complete and effective 
statute we have ever had proposed to meet the exigencies 
of so many complex interests as are those concerned in 
the wise administration of Colorado's game and fish re- 
sources. 
The provisions of the proposed measure are most sug- 
gestive in their demonstration that in this Rocky Moun- 
tain State at least the people's game and fish interests 
have taken their place along with the mining resources 
and others, as something which sound public polity will 
no longer consent to give over to happy-go-lucky squan 
dering. Mr. Beaman presents the elk and the antelope and 
the deer and the trout as a public possession which is to 
be protected from the foolish, wanton and wasteful raids 
of citizens and aliens alike. The Beaman measure is, in 
short, the most advanced recognition and exposition, we 
have yet had in America of the growing idea that the tak- 
ing of public game is a privilege which must be restricted 
by the people who possess the game, and confined within 
the bounds of sound economy. We have here another of 
the rapidly multiplying signs of the times which mark the 
passing of the old order and the coming in of a new. The 
protection of fish and game is not now regarded, as for- 
merly for the most part it was, to be class legislation for 
the benefit of a restricted element in the community; and 
the framing of the laws is not much longer to be left 
to the whim and caprice of notional gunners, actuated by 
their immediate and personal interests alone. As here in 
Colorado, as in the States represented at the convention 
of wardens in Chicago the other day, as in Maine and 
many another State, serious minded, public spirited and 
capable men are talcing up the preparation of the statutes, 
are giving to it mature and laborious attention, and are 
at this ending of the century putting game and fish con- 
servancy on a reasonable and secure basis. 
•Whether or riot all the details 'of Mr. Beaman's pro- 
jected statute shall be approved at Denver this winter, he 
has in this elaborating of a strong and consistent meas- 
ure given us a form of fish and game law which will 
mark an epoch in the development of American game 
legislation. 
MODEL FOREST CULTURE. 
Attention has more than once been called to the grati- 
fying progress in forest culture since the setting aside of 
the forest reservations in the West created a public ex- 
citement which led people to examine into the subject for 
themselves. While a few years ago the great public was 
entirely ignorant and unconcerned about the matter, the 
conditions are now very different. 
One of the most practical steps looking to the interest- 
ing of land owners and lumbermen in handling their forest 
lands has recently been taken by the Division of Forestry 
of the Unit.ed States Department of Agriculture, of which 
Mr. Gifford Pinchot is at the head. This is a plan to 
furnish assistance to private owners of forest lands, so 
that they may be enabled to handle these holdings to the 
best advantage— which means to their own greatest profit, 
and to the best use of the forests as protectors of the 
soil and of the water supply. 
As a' rule, the farmer regards his wood lot as so much 
waste land, valuable only for the fuel and the fencing 
timber which it produces. He works in it in winter, when 
he has nothing else to occupy himself with, but he hardly 
regards this work as bringing him any return, although 
it furnishes him with fuel through the year. If, however, 
the farmer or the owner of a tract of woodland can be 
shown that there is money to be rri'ade out of this land, if 
it is properly handled, he will certainly make an effort to 
treat it so that it will produce an income. Mr. Pinchot 
is taking steps to give this information. In other words, 
the Division of Forestry is prepared, so far as its very in- 
adequate appropriations will permit, to assist owners of 
wood lots and of the larger tracts of timber valuable for 
lumber to handle their timber lands in the w T ay which 
shall be most profitable to them. Tracts of any size, from 
five acres upward, are eligible to treatment. The only 
distinction made is that the owners of large tracts, which 
may present more difficult questions, will be required to 
share in the expense of solving the problem of administra- 
tion, while owners of small tracts will receive assistance 
without bearing any part of the cost. Applications for 
such assistance will be considered in the order of their 
receipt, but where a particular piece of land promises 
for any reason to furnish a useful example, precedence 
may be given to it. 
Two forms of agreement to be made between the land " 
owner and the Department of Agriculture are issued by 
the Division. One, the wood-lot agreement, provides that 
a plan for working the wood lot shall be prepared by the 
Division, and that the Department shall supervise the 
execution of it without charge to the owner, and shall 
even defray the expenses and pay its agent. The only 
condition made by the Department is that it shall have the 
right to publish and distribute the plan and its results, for 
the information of farmers and others whom it may 
concern. 
The timber land agreement, which applies to larger 
bodies of land, is much the same as the other, except that 
it is provided that actual and necessary expenses for 
traveling and subsistence of the agent or agents of the 
Department working under the agreement shall be paid 
by the land owner, who shall also furnish the assistants 
needed by them without cost to the Department. It is 
specially provided that the Department of Agriculture 
shall in no respect participate in the receipts from i he 
land, but shall have the right to publish and distribute uae 
plan and its results for the information of lumbermen, 
forest owners and others whom it may concern. 
It is obvio'us enough that offers so liberal as these are 
likely to be accepted by many land owners, large and 
small, and that the Department of Agriculture, with its 
insufficient appropriations, will be able to care for only a 
few of the applications which it will receive for such 
assistance. Nevertheless, the good which will be accom- 
plished by this plan can hardly be over estimated, since to 
carry it out even on a small scale will result in the setting 
up in many localities all over the land of a series of model 
forests, which cannot fail to be object lessons of the high- 
est value to land owners residing near them. Moreover, a 
very large number of owners of large tracts of timbered 
lands will undoubtedly avail themselves of this oppor- 
tunity to have their forests handled in a scientific manner. 
A number have already done so. Among them Messrs. 
Whitney and Webb, in the Adirondacks, where, it is grati- 
fying to learn, not a stick of timber can now be cut except 
under the supervision of a trained forester. We can im- 
agine how differently these grand forests would have 
looked to-day if a plan like Mr. Pinchot's had been 
adopted twenty-five years ago. 
No one has borne a larger part than Mr. Pinchot in 
stimulating the interest in forest preservation in the 
United States, and it is a matter for sincere congratula- 
tion to the country at large that a man so well trained, so 
able and so energetic, is chief of the Forestry Division of 
the Department of Agriculture. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
A few years ago New York expended several thousand 
dollars on a commission to codify the game and fish laws 
and to bring order out of chaos. For one year after the 
commission had completed its work, any person of ordi- 
nary intelligence could comprehend the intent of any 
given section; but the clarification of the statute cannot 
be said to have extended beyond such a period. The con- 
dition is now worse than ever. Nobody can tell, for in- 
stance, absolutely what the quail season is on Long Island, 
or indeed if there is any season. If the Legislature of 1899 
will set its face firmly against any amendments of the 
laws beyond the straightening out of the obscurities, con- 
tradictions and hopeless puzzles, it will do all that need be 
done, and quite the best thing to do. No expenditure of 
thousands would be required. A fee of one hundred dol- 
lars would be ample recompense for the task, and we 
would cheerfully undertake to secure the services of a 
competent member of the bar to do it for that sum, and 
for the gratification he would surely have in the completed 
work. 
To its circle of readers, old and new, Forest and 
Stream extends the gratulations of the season, and 
wishes them a Happy New Year. May the outings of 
1899 be rich in the anticipation, not less full of solid satis- 
faction in the actual experience, and giving material for 
delightful retrospect. One's opportunities may be limited, 
one's time in the woods all too brief; but of anticipation 
and recollection no bound can be fixed. This prolonging 
of a camping trip, in thought of it before and after, is a 
characteristic of outdoor life which only- the initiated can 
appreciate. 
At a meeting of Grand Rapids, Mich., sportsmen last 
week it was voted almost unanimously by the two hundred 
delegates to urge the retention of the law which prohibits 
spring shooting. This is a most gratifying result of the 
discussion. The' laws against spring shooting are un- 
questionably open to complaint when they restrict the 
shooters in one State, but give license to the spring 
shooter in an adjoining State. But the prohibition of 
spring shooting is right. The remedy of inequalities is 
to bring under operation of the prohibition those States 
which are now exempt. This is progress in the right direct 
tion. To abolish an anti-spring . shooting law where it 
now prevails would be a most unwise and inexcusable 
retrograde step. We trUst that the Michigan Sportsmen's 
Association, when it meets at Lansing January 17th, will 
hold out strenuously for the retention of the present spring 
shooting law. „_ 
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