Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, bv Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
''''■^"^'1ri^rTHs,\?"^^°'"l NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1899. U. m'^^.ok^^lrT^^'yo.K 
Spoft may be defined as the fair, difficult, ex- 
citing, perhaps dangerous, pursuit of a wild animal, 
who has the odds in his favor, whose courage, 
strength, speed or cunning is more or less a 
match for or superior to our own, whose natural 
instinct engages a considerable amount of our 
intelligence to overcome it, and whose death, being 
of service, is justifiable. Lord Lovat, 
' HUNTING PRESERVES AND RENTALS. 
Once a year there comes to us from a real estate firm in 
Scotland a register of deer forests, grouse moors, low- 
country shootings and salmon fishings which are for 
lease ; and the compendium is never devoid of suggestion 
of the magnitude of the interests of the game preserves 
of Great Britain. The system is one of which we have 
no counterpart in our own country, and yet the signs of 
the times appear to tell us. that the beginning of it will 
be known here in some modified form in the not distant 
future. 
The preserves listed as for lease comprise, of course, 
only a part, and we assume a minor part, of all the shoot- 
ings which are to let. What the total rental of such 
preserves may be we have not the data to show, but the 
aggregates of those here given are sufficiently impressive. 
Sixty- six deer forests are described, af which the aggre- 
gate annual rental specified amounts to £84,465, or $410,- 
500. There are 428 grouse moors, the rental of which 
sums up $840,214. The mixed shootings number 296, with 
a total rental of $383,262. Late autumn and winter shoot- 
ing is advertised on fifty-eight preserves, the total rental 
of which is $16,784. All these are in connection with 
houses, which range from castles to hunting lodges, and 
there are in addition 145 shooting privileges without 
houses, the total sum asked for which is $133,816. Al- 
together the rents amount to $1,786,383; and yet this is, 
as we have said, not by any means the measure of the total 
renting valuation of the preserves of Scotland. Take the 
' deer forests for instance. We have not at hand data for 
computing the extent of the deer forest territory nor its 
valuation. Figures given not long ago by Lord Lovat 
estimated the number of deer forests in the Highlands at 
110, covering 2,000,000 acres, with an annual rental value of 
£300,000; and it was estimated that during the thirty 
years preceding the date of this computation there had 
been spent on and about the forests the vast sum of 
£4,000,000. 
While many of the most famous forests have been 
hunting preserves from time immemorial, or at least for 
centuries, vast tracts of territory in the Highlands now 
devoted to deer forests have supplanted what were in the 
early years of the century sheep pastures. The change 
has come about gradually, having been induced by the 
varying returns possible to be earned from the land as a 
sheep pasture or as a deer forest. Decrease in the price 
of mutton and wool, increased cost of wintering sheep, 
and on the other hand the growing numbers of hunters 
induced by improvement in firearms and a developed love 
of sport, with consequently more generous prices paid 
for hunting privileges— all these have had a steady in- 
fluence in driving out the shepherds and supplanting them 
with foresters and keepers. 
The rental of a deer forest is of course determined by 
supply and demand. The proprietor gets for it all he 
can induce the deer stalkers to pay. We find in the Bad- 
mington Library an interestiiig computation of the basis 
on which a Highland estate must be rented, as a deer 
forest to make good to the proprietor the anjount he 
might get for it if used in other ways. It is estimated 
that to produce a stag six years old — the age at which it 
is fit to be shot — 300 acres are required, which would be 
worth for sheep and grouse £30. In addition to this 
possible revenue from his land for which he must provide 
in his rental for hunting purposes, there are various other 
expenses which the proprietor must meet, as for the 
maintenance of shooting lodges and foresters' houses, 
repair of roads and bridges, and the rent he must "lie out 
of" while the forest is stocking. All this does not leave 
a great margin of profit to the proprietor out of a rental 
which is based upon the rate of £40 per stag, the ordinary 
rent of forests in Scotland. As prices rule in these days, a 
Scottish deer forest brings to its proprietor a greater 
revenue than he could get from the land in any other 
way ; and while the^advantage or disadvantage of the sys- 
tem as to the Highlanders themselves has been argued 
pro and con in Parliament and the press, and in pamphlets 
and bulky volumes, there is perhaps good reason to 
hold the opinion that the deer ranges are on the whole a 
benefit. 
To rent a deer forest for the season deres not mean 
simply to hire the privilege of shooting over so much 
territory ; it means taking a country place which may be a 
castle or an extensive establishment of residence and 
appurtenances. Nor is the game confined to deer; there 
are likely to be grouse and salmon, the amounts of which 
the lessee is privileged to take being carefully stipulated. 
Here, for example, is a "great sporting domain, yield- 
ing about forty stags and 2,000 brace of grouse, with mag- 
nificent residence," the rent being £4,000 for the season. 
And here in detail is just what may be had in exchange 
for £3,000 for the .season in Inverness-shire: 
This magnificent forest extends to 32,000 acres, fully stocked with 
heavy and splendid deer, a great many being royals. Forest 
comprises some of the grandest and most picturesque scenery in 
the Highlands. Stags limited to 100, and hinds to 40. For several 
seasons by far the best average of any single forest in Scotland 
both as to the weight and quality of deer were obtained here. 
Besides deer, there are the usual varieties of Highland game. 
Most excellent trout fishing in lochs and streams, boats pro- 
vided. The Lodge is without exception the most beautifully 
situated and handsomely furnished in the HighJands; contains 
three public, five bed rooms, one dressing room, bath room, three 
double servants' rooms, servants' hall, and office. The old Lodge, 
200yds. away, contains one public, five bed rooms, two servants' 
rooms, and offices, gillie's house. Stabling for nine horses. 
Coach house, kennels, and good vegetable garden. There is a 
hut in the forest, nine miles from the lodges, containing four 
rooms and three attic rooms. Rent asked, £3,000, including all 
upkeep, wages of four stalkers, taxes, etc. 
This whole system of leased preserves in Great Britain 
is a business system conducted on business principles. 
The game supply is maintained as the farmer main- 
tains his poultry stock; the privileges accorded to the 
lessee are definitely agreed upon, and are governed by the 
controlling principle that the parent stock, the capital must 
not be impaired. So many stags may be taken, so many 
hinds, so many birds, so many fish. Under such a system 
of exploitation the stock in trade is of assured per- 
manence. 
THE CARP NUISANCE. 
If Mr. Palmer had not confined himself to the introduc- 
tion of birds and quadrupeds, in his paper on the peril of 
bringing new species of animals into a country, he might 
have written a pertinent chapter on the German carp as it 
has been imported into America and placed in our waters. 
It is almost grotesque now to look back upon the en- 
thusiasm and confidence with which advocates of the carp 
set themselves to the task of giving him free range in 
various States, and to compare this with the current com- 
plaints which come from many quarters that the fish is a 
nuisance which has ruined the streams for other and 
better varieties, and which is so firmly established that its 
eradication is beyond the ingenuity of our fisheries 
authorities. 
The New York Fish Commission has recently received a 
petition from Walden, in Orange county, submitting that 
the Walkill River, which is one of the finest streams of 
water in the State and the leading stream in Orange and 
Ulster counties, and which formerly was noted for bass 
and other game fish, has of late been so infested with 
German carp that there is now only a remote possibility 
of catching a game fish of any kind. The complaint comes 
from Supervisor I. H. Loughran, of Montgomery. He 
says that the fish wallow in the mud like hogs and keep 
the waters roiled so that bass fishing is out of the ques- 
tion. He petitions the Commission to take some measure 
to exterminate the nuisance. What the Commissioners 
propose to do about it we do not know, nor what they 
might do. In ponds or small lakes which are capable 
of being drained the fish can be shoveled out as they were 
a few years ago in Passaic, N. J., but how they are to 
be cleared from a river is one of the fishing problems 
more than one fish commission would pay a round sum to 
have a solution of. 
Nor does it help matters to be told that the* carp is 
after all a good table fish if we only knew how to cook 
it. That may be quite true, and we are perfectly willing 
to concede it. But we never did assent to the proposition 
of exchanging our black bass for carp, or our ducking 
marshes for carp ; and we are not willing to have the bar- 
gain thrust upon us. Now that the evil of the carp has 
growft to such dimensions the State and National author- 
ities should exhaust the fishcultural ingenuity of the day 
in the quest of remedial agencies. To declare that the 
carp must go is simple enough ; to devise how .it shall go 
is another thing. 
THE TOILSOMENESS OF SPORT. 
Now whatever could possess intelligent and usually 
sensible men to make martyrs of themselves and undergo 
hardship and suffering after the manner of Mr. Lewis 
Hopkins and his misguided companion in the "game of 
freeze out" of which the tale is told this week? These 
men had not lost any ducks for which they were com- 
pelled to make quest in zero weather; and if they had 
been ordered out by their country to undergo such win- 
ter rigors they would have thought themselves heroes and 
have made much of their display of patriotism. We heard 
a New York lawyer the other day describing with mani- 
fest satisfaction how he had trudged across New Found- 
land carries bearing his share of burden of camp duffle, 
and how at the end of the trip he was ready to fall down 
with fatigue. The closer we get to the sportsman, the 
fiercer the light we let in upon him in his woods retreat, 
the more shall we find him a fellow of infinite enjoyment 
of "hard lines." It seems as if sometimes he were almost 
actually perverse in making it hard for himself, when, as 
Nessmuk used to say, he might as well "go light" and 
have some comfort. For one thing there is the joy of the 
battle, the overcoming of difficulties, the mastery of 
obstacles, the enduring of strenuous wrestling with the 
opposition and the satisfaction of triumphing over it. 
The toilsomeness of sport takes a multitude of forms, as 
there is a multitude of devotees of different tastes to 
court it and strive mightily with it. Now it is a duck 
hunter in the ice, now the canoeman poling the rapids, 
the oarsman bucking against wind and tide, the elk hunter 
cutting his pack-train way through down timber, the 
sheep stalker dragging his wearied limbs across the rock- 
slide, the July woodcock shooter fighting mosquitoes and 
dodging rattlers in a Pennsylvania swamp, the Mississippi 
bear hunter doing the very hardest "stunt" of his life in 
the canebrake, the Long Island trout fisherman in the 
icy water of opening day contracting the first trout of 
the season and a case of rheumatism warranted not to let 
go until his dying hour. In some one of these, or in some 
one of the scores of other exercises of what we call sport, 
you, good sir, who are a .sportsman, ha\'^ made test of the 
fascination and thralldom. By suffering and enduring 
and achieving you have won for yourself a place with the 
initiated; and well may you smile — though you may not 
speak— when you hear foolish talk of the effeminacy of 
sport and the laziness of sportsmen. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Writing from St. Augustine, a correspondent tells us 
that the friends of the birds in Florida did not accomplish 
in the Legislature all that was sought for in the way of 
better protection for plume and song birds. Amendments 
were introduced going much further for the protection 
of birds which are not game than the provisions of the 
law finally enacted, but the House did not assent to these. 
However, Florida is gradually becoming educated, and 
there are many reasons why those who have given their 
endeavor to the cause of the song and plume birds should 
feel encouraged by the measure of success already 
achieved, and should keep up the good fight. A growing 
sentiment in their support may be counted on in the more 
settled uistricts, and all in good time the cows counties 
will follow. 
The Christian County Hunting Chib, of Tennessee, has 
been in continuous existence for forty-eight years, and 
the correspondent who tells us of it notes the remarkable 
fact that some of the charter members are still active 
participants in the camp hunts. This is an extremely long 
life for an association of men held together almost in- 
formally by the common interest its members have in an 
annual outing. Many a more pretentious organization, 
social and political, has run its course and been forgotten 
while this company of Tennessee hunters has maintained 
its life. What tales the oldest members might tell the 
youngest of the changed hunting conditions the half- 
century has wrought! Our compliments to the Christian 
County Hunting Club; may it live another half-century. 
