Ja.v. 21, iSgg.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Wade wag pfrffcct. When we wanted to open a can ot 
frczen beans we gave it to Billy, who with one whack 
of his Icnife would cut it clean through the middle. This 
he did many times, but the edge of the knife did not 
seem to be affected. It was with this knife that Billy 
built his mountain lion snares, fixed up his bait house, 
etc. One day Mr. C. S. McChesney, of Troy. N. Y.. 
one of our party, e.x:pressed an admiration for this old- 
time knife, and it was just like Billy Jackson to un- 
buckle it and hand it to him. I presume that Mr. Mc- 
Chesney never had a gift that he vakied more highly than 
lie did this old-time weapon. All his friends asked hint 
where he got it, and where duplicates could be had. Mr. 
McChesney nosed around the importing houses at New 
York city, and finally ran out a Sheffield trail and got 
at the makers of these knives. It was thus that, knowing 
how delighted I Avould be with one of them, he sent 
me this for Christmas. Neither he nor any one could 
have delighted me more. From this time on, Capt. 
Bobo, of Mississippi, has got none the best of me in a 
bear fight, when it conies to a show down of knives. 
The Bobo bear knife is a Mississippi evolution, and is not 
dissimilar to the old Hudson Bay dagger. 
By the Way. 
By the way, speaking of Capt. Bobo, here is a letter 
for him from Ernest A. Bigelow, of Sutton, Quebec, 
who says, "Will you kindly give me the address of 
Capt. Bobo, or of any one else you know of who keeps 
dogs for bear hunting? I wish to buy a pair." 
I presume Capt. Bobo can still be reached by address- 
ing him — Capt, R. E. Bobo, Bobo, Miss. Whether he 
Avould part with any of his bear dogs is another question. 
A good bear dog is worth much frankincense and myrrh, 
I presume Mr, Bigelow has good bear dog material 
all around him, but first you want to get your bears, 
and train your dogs on bear and nothing else. After that 
you probably won't want to sell your good bear dogs 
so long as there are any bears left. But Capt. Bobo is 
the soul of generosity, and it may do no harm to try 
him anyhow. 
The Old Gun. 
A friend of mine writes me, "By the way, you should 
have branded that article of yours about the old gun 
that appeared in the last issue of Forest and Stream 
'Delayed in transit.' We do not want our reputation 
as law-abiding citizens to suffer, and you start off just as 
if you had that day received a letter from me, asking 
you to come over here and shoot quail and partridge. 
Every one knows that in a country where both of these 
game birds flourish a good, tight closed season is in force 
after the first of January." 
"Delayed in transit" will cover the above case.' Of 
course there is no imputation of laxity to the morals of 
my friend Or myself. 
Footwear. 
Still another friend writes me this week and wants 
to^ know where he can get a pair of soft, heelless rubbers 
with leather tops, "such as Mr. Schultz wore in the 
Blackfoot himt." It is an odd thing to say, but I do 
not believe these goods can be bought in Chicago, in 
spite of the fact that we have here the largest mail order 
houses in the world, who wish to supply the mountain 
and pine country trade. There is no footwear on earth 
SQ good for snowshoeing as precisely that above men- 
tioned. The shoes were not stiff and heavy, but of 
pure, soft rubber; flat-soled inside, and with wide, rolled 
edges to take the cutting of a crust. The rubbers were 
the Gold Seal rubbers made by one rubber house, and 
the leather tops, I understand, are the invention of a 
Wisconsin man. These shoes were bought at Kalispel!, 
Mont., and they cost there $2.75 a pair. If some good 
house will take hold and advertise these shoes in Forest 
AND Stream, they can sell a lot of goods. I have often 
referred to this sort of footwear before. 
Scattering. 
Mr. A. G. Jordan, of Arrowhead, B. C, writes me: 
"I am sorry not to have been able to call on you while 
on my way East from Alaska, but I had to turn back 
and go to the Peace River. I was looking forward to an 
enjoyable chat. I arrived home the last week in Decem- 
ber, after one of the most exciting trips it was ever my lot 
to take part in, and I have been in some pretty tight corn- 
ers. I have traveled all over British Columbia and 
Alaska." Mr. Jordan wants to know if a story of that 
sort of thing would be interesting. Sure! Send it along, 
Gokey, of Dawson, has been out deer hunting and 
killed five deer. 
Wardens at Zilwaukie, Mich,, seized thirty barrels 
of short fish this week. Warden Du Chaine was just 
going back to Bay City when he heard a New York 
dealer say that the officers had overlooked a lot of 
twenty barrels which he had. Warden Dii Chaine took 
the next train back and seized the twenty barrels. This 
must have seemed to the dealers a good deal like coming 
back after the safe. 
Mr. E. W. Davis, of New York city, asks me where 
to go fpr sport in Texas. I have told him to try the 
new High Island country in Texas, By the way, what 
has become of Dick Merrill, who was en route for 
that point at last accounts? I should be glad to have a 
report of the shooting in that locality. 
The_ Charlotte News, of North Carolina, has issued 
a special edition of great interest to hunters and fishers. 
It gives towns in many different counties, describing 
aU the local peculiarities, sort of shooting, hotel and 
guide rates, and all those particulars which are just such 
as all sportsmen tourists like to know in advance it 
possible. As each winter there are a great many in- 
quiries for Southern shooting country,"! would suggest' 
it might be well for persons intending to go South to 
write for a copy of the above-mentioned paper, which 
sets forth the claims of North Carolina, as below: 
. "North Carolina is the premier State of the South 
for the hunter and fisherman. Extending nearly 500 
miles from east to west, and at its widest point nearly 
200 miles north and south, it embraces sea coast, inlet, 
swamp, meadow, upland, plateau and mountain; also 
lake, river and sound, and countless acres of unbroken 
and untouched virgin forest. Included in this vast and 
varied domain is nearly every known variety f^f game pe- 
culiar to the temperate zone. To attempt an enuinera^ 
tion would be simply to furnish a list of all varieties of 
game, with which we of these latitudes are familiar. 
Particular attention, however, is invited to the attrac- 
tions of the Pee Dee Valley, for quail, turkeys, ducks, 
geese and snipe; to the regions adjacent to Wilming- 
ton, for fresh and salt-water game fish, and for deer, 
bears, ducks, geese, snipe and all water fowl; and to the 
magnificent western North Carolina section for all kinds 
of larger game, including bears, deer and here and there 
a panther. Quail are unusually plentiful nearly all over 
the State; turkeys more or less so, but they are particu- 
larly numerous in some favored localities which will be 
briefly described. 
Houses. 
I have been startling my friends by telling them that 
some da}', when I get rich, I am going to build me a log 
cabin here in Chicago. I have tried several different ways 
of living in this town, and none of them are any good, I 
quit my club because I found the girl frying beefsteak on 
the top of the stove, and I am thinking of abandoning the 
marble palace where I now live because I do not like the 
babies who live under me, I believe 1 could be com- 
fortable in a log cabin, where I could drive nails into the. 
wall. My friend Mr. Schultz and I have figured out a 
very nice plan for a log cabin, and I think if some one 
would give me a couple of acres of land and a few logs, I 
could make myself quite com fot table, and be safe from 
the babies that cry in the night. There is no sort of 
house pleasanter to live in than a log cabin. 
Speaking of houses, it is quite an idea which has just 
been perfected by those two thoroughgoing sportsmen, 
Mr. W. B. Mershon, of Saginaw, and his friend, Mr. 
Morley. These two have formed a partnership for the 
manufacture of portable houses — practical and convenient. 
These houses are built in the great mill plant of W, B. 
Mershon & Co,, of Saginaw, and it was there I saw the 
process of their manufacture during a visit last fall. The 
houses were as neat and light and beautiful as any one 
could ask, and so ingeniously made that they could fairly 
be carried in a shawl strap, and could certainly be taken 
over any road into a camp by the same wagon which would 
be necessary to transport a tent and outfit. With one of 
these houses a fellow can defy the weather and put up his 
camp for the entire season. These houses must, I think, 
prove most convenient for use about summer resort places, 
as servants' quarters, extra guest rooms, etc. They are 
solid as a rock and can be put together by any intelligent 
boy. There is not a nail to be driven, and all one needs 
is a wrench and a screw driver, to tighten up the whole 
concern and make it perfectly firm and strong. I always 
thought Mr. Mershon was about the best hustler around 
a camp that I ever saw, and he has hustled out something 
here of which we shall hear a great deal more. I don't 
know that I shall trade my log cabin, when I get it 
done, for one of the "M. & M." portable houses, but 
if it should come to a show down on a traveling trip, I am 
afraid I should have to leave my log cabin at home, 
whereas I could take one of these shawl strap cottages, 
anywhere from 3 to 36ft. long, and set up a studio wher- 
ever I happened to get caught at night. 
How Much Grub to Take Along. 
Mr. H. C. Griswold, of Watkins, N. Y., recently wrote 
rne a letter similar to many I have received at different 
times. He says : "Can you give me the amount of flour, 
salt, tea, coffee and other eatables necessary for three 
men in the woods for five months' trapping, etc. Yon 
have had experience in the woods and can tell about this, 
and if you will do so you will oblige me and I will not 
bother you any more." 
The answer to the above letter might be one thing or it 
might be another, according to the personal preferences of 
the man making the "estimate. I am not' trusting to my 
own judgment or experience in giving the estimate which 
I do, but to-day I placed Mr. Griswold's letter in the 
hands of Mr._ J. W. Schultz, who was here in the office^ 
Mr. Schultz is an old-time guide and outfitter who has 
taken out very many parties in the Western country, more 
especially in the Northern Rockies. He submits the fol- 
lowing estimate as being about what he would advise, and 
I have every reason to believe that it would be about 
right, which is to say, ample and not too extensive. I 
suggest the preservation of this list by others who may 
be in Mr. Griswold's position : 30oIbs. flour, 20olbs, 
bacon, loolbs. sugar, sibs. tea, 3olbs. coft'ee, isolbs. beans, 
30olbs. potatoes, solbs. onions, 81bs. baking powder or 2lbs. 
yeast cakes, lolbs. salt (food only). 75lbs. evaporated 
fruits, 5 gallons syrup, 25lbs. rice, 5olbs, oatmeal, butter. 
Worcestershire sauce, sage, etc., ad libitum. Dessicated 
vegetables are also very good. It should be remembered 
that the above outfit is for three men for five months. 
Estimates for other times or parties can be scaled from 
the above. This is plain food for plain men. The list 
would ordinarily be fuller for pleasure parties. 
On the Great Lakes. 
The Fish and Game Commission of Michigan has been 
waging a hot fight this fall with the violators of the laws 
on whitefish and trout on the Great Lakes, more especially 
with the Beaver Island fishermen. Most of this work has 
been under the charge of Deputy Brewster, and it has 
been successful. It cost the State of Michigan over $700 
to hire tugs and men in the police work on Lake Michi- 
gan. E. Hough. 
1200 BoYCE Building, Chicago, 11], 
New York Game Law. 
The Assembly Committee on Fisheries and Game- 
Messrs, Axtell, of Delaware; Bryan, of Jefferson; Hal-' 
leek, of Suffolk; Kelly, 'of Herkimer; Sage, of Albany; 
Doughty, of Queens ; Davis, of New York ; Beede, of Es- 
sex ; Pickett, of Clinton ; Bashford, of Columbia ; "Meyer 
of New York. ' 
The Senate Committee on Forest, Fish and Game Laws : 
Messrs. Brown, Chahoon, Malby, Ford, D. F. Davis, La 
Roche and Havens. 
Okahumpica, Fla., Jan. 14,— The quail shooting and 
black bass fishing are both very good at this place. The 
Clarendon Hotel furnishes boats free of charge and bird 
dogs and team when out for the entire day. J. B. W. 
Camp Cookery. 
Editor Forest §nd Stream: 
Do you not think it possible that Col, Mather could be 
persuaded to write a cook book? 
There is crying need of a treatise on game cooking in 
camp and kitchen. 
The Colonel knows it thoroughly, and could tell it so 
pleasantly that the guild would rise and call him blessed. 
Put it "before him as a duty, and enter my name for two 
copies — one each for camp and kitchen, 
Lewis Hopkins. 
[Did Mr. Hopkins ever test the recipes given in Seneca's 
"Canoe and Camp Cookery"? They are accounted good 
ones.] 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will find it profitable 
to advertise them in Fobest and Stream. 
A Question and Some Answers. 
There are a Vfhole mess of tilings that I'd like to know 
that seem to be important, but I never mention them, be- 
cause I don't believe that any one else Icnows the answers 
to them, for they are such as "Lord Dundreary" classed 
as "things no fellow can find out." But my question is 
not in this category; it's a simple thing, and as I have 
been answering questions for years, this will show that I 
can ask one. 
For about fifty years I have been bothered about a berrj' 
that I met in boyhood, and have never met since. I never 
knew but one individual bush vvliich bore it, and every 
year, and for a dozen years up to 1853, I ate berries 
from it. The bush grew in a ravine back of the sulphur 
spring called "Harrowgate," above the B. & A. R. R. near 
Greenbush, now Rensselaer, N. Y., opposite Albany. John 
Atwood called them "cedar berries," and my recollection 
of the bush was a branching shrub about 3ft, high with 
dark green leaves like spruce or cedar, but of course it 
was neither of these trees. The berries were like nothing 
I've seen since, and I've vagabondized quite a bit in the 
woods from Minnesota to Texas, and from New York to 
western Kansas. 
The berries were, as memory recalls them, about J^in. 
in diameter by ^'m. long, of a rich salmon color and 
sweet. A peculiar feature was that the outer or calyx 
end was open and a seed was plainly visible half-wav 
down the berry. As I knew every hill, ravine, farm and 
bit of timber on both sides of the river within a radius of 
ten miles, and never found another bush bearing berries 
like that one, nor ever ran across one in other parts, those 
be rries have bothered me for years to know their name 
and character. Some botanist will, no doubt, know all 
about them, and he's the fellow that I'm after. 
While on the subject of berries, I must confess to being 
confused by some common names of them, as outside of 
a few water plants I know nothing of botany. I know 
that the wtntergreen berry is called "checkcrberry," but 
what is the "service berry," so often spoken of? I sus- 
pect it to be one of two which in the locality of my boy- 
hood bore other names. There was an edible red berry 
that grew on a creeping vine, and th'e berry had two 
"eyes," probably the calyces of two flowers, which had 
merged into one fruit. The berry was wider than long: 
one called them "squaw berries" and others termed them 
"eye berries." Then there was a plant which bore a 
cluster of white flowers in June on a stalk some 6in. high, 
which turned into a cluster of a dozen to twenty red 
berries, and these we boys knew as "bunch berries," 
"pigeon berries" and "partridge berries." I suspect one 
of these two berries as being the "service berry," but why 
"service" ? 
Stocking a Trout Pond. • 
The following question came by mail : 
"How many trout will a pond of, say, one square acre, 
with an average depth of loft., support? We would like 
to have an idea of what a small pond will stand, so as 
neither to under nor overstock." 
This is hard to answer, because each pond is a problem 
by itself, and into this problem come flow, temperature 
and the food supply. All these things are prime factors 
and not one to be slighted or there will be no use in stock- 
ing the pond at all. But here goes as a random shot: 
A square acre of water loft. in depth, of a summer 
temperature not above 75 degrees Fahr., at the surface 
and not above 65 degrees at bottom, containing 4,840 sq. 
yds. of surface, or 14,500 cu. yds., should give breathing 
room to 20,000 trout of ilb. weight, if the flow of water 
is sufficient for proper teration with submerged water 
plants to assist. This is a theoretical view, but no pond 
of that description could furnish food for trout of that 
number and size. 
If ordinary conditions of flow and proper temperatures 
prevail, I would stock it with not more than 3.000 year- 
lings, or 1,200 two-year-olds; the yearlings to "be not less 
than 5 to 6in. and the two-year-olds from g to 11 in. That 
would be the maximum number, and one-half the fig- 
ures the minimum. Introduce water cress in the shal- 
lows, but don't let it choke the flow, as it sometimes does. 
This plant helps to keep the water cool and is a good 
feeding ground for crustaceans, but it will need thinning 
in summer. Then plant the "fresh-water shrimp" Gam- 
marus, and the Asellus or "water asel," and they will 
thrive among the cress and provide food for young trout. 
Insect larvae will come without planting, and help feed 
the fish. 
The only fish I evef recommend for trout waters is the 
golden .shiner (Noiemigomis clirysolencaS) .or the red fin 
{Notropis megcdops) ; but these are, never recommended 
unless the pond contains catfish, sunfish, bas.s or perch. 
If you have no fish but trout in your pond put no other in 
it. You may introduce the little newt, called also eft, 
evet, salamander, etc., and miscalled "lizard." Lizards 
have scales and live on land. 
The best trout lake I know of is Wilmurt, in the 
Adirondacks. It is on a mountain top, and its outlet 
filters through the rocks, and breaks out some hundreds of 
yards below, barring the ascent of all fishes. Brook trout 
and newts are the only vertebrates in it. 
