EPT. 23, i8gg.] 
parts of the country and from all sorts of people. 
;y sell a great many of these houses, for boat houses, 
y houses, servants' houses at summer resorts, etc., 
the firm was somewhat staggered not long ago at 
etving an order from a man who^wanted them to build 
I a portable church. The dimensions he named were 
ond the ability of the manufacturers, and it is probable 
will have to try elsewhere for his church. 
Yeflowstone Park Aoimals. 
Ion. John F. Lace}"-, of the old Sixth District of Iowa, 
0 has, since his appearance in Congress, made so en- 
ble a record for himself in many matters pertaining to 
preservation of American wild animals and v^ild na- 
e, has just returned from a trip to the Pacific Coast 
1 the Yellowstone Park. The Park never had a better 
nd than Mr. Lacey, and reference to the public records 
[ show that it was he who introduced the bill in 1894 
sreby it became a penitentiary offense to kill a buffalo 
bin the limits of the National Park. In a private let- 
from which I dare to make some extract, Mr. Lacey 
;rs to the animals of the Park. He says the restrictions 
firearms have produced good results. He saw some 
r in the Park, and plenty of bear, finding bird life very 
rce, owing to the altitude. "The buffalo," he says, "is 
ctically extinct. There are somewhere from seven to 
inty-five still living. It is too high for buffalo breed- 
, and the herd is now so small that it is difficult for 
cows to defend their young against the wolves. The 
nagement dare not exterminate the wolves, because 
ground squirrels would then become so numerous as 
;at all the grass and starve the animals to death. They 
trying to reduce the wolves in number sufficiently so 
t they wiill not hunt in packs." Mr. Lacey says he 
nd the trout very abundant, and very few of them un- 
,lthy, a great improvement over their average condition 
he time he was there twelve years ago. The percentage 
wormy fish is very much less now than it was then, 
to the elk, Mr. Lacey think there are no doubt between 
300 and 30,000, though he saw no elk at the time of his 
;t, as they were still back in the mountains, away from- 
usual lines of tourist travel.. The worst slaughter of 
, he says, is in the winter, when these animals drift over 
3 the Jackson's Hole country to escape the deep snows. 
Mianesota National Park. 
£r. Lacey is one of the members of Congress whom 
irybody was most anxious to have go up into Minne- 
(a with the Congressional party of exploration and in- 
tigation this month, and his inability to attend, by rea- 
of lack of time, is a source of ratich disappointment to 
concerned. Matters regarding the trip still progress, 
i at this writing it would appear that prospects^ are 
y flattering for a successful expedition. The invitations 
. now all out, and there have at this date been forty- 
ht responses, of which sixteen have been acceptances, 
ere are over 400 Congressmen yet to hear from, and 
this number all likelihood would indicate a large num- 
• of acceptances, perhaps so large that the party may 
)ve much bigger than was at first supposed.^ Those 
mbers of Congress who have signified their intention 
attending are as below: Hon. J. D. Bowersock, of 
wrence, Kan.; Hon. R. P. Bishop, of Ludington, 
ch.; Hon. J. G. Cannon, of Danville, 111.; Hon. S. A. 
ivenport, of Erie, Pa.; Hon. J. H. Davidson, of Osh- 
sh, Wis.; Hon. Wm. H. Graham, of Allegheny, Pa.; 
m. Toe R. Lane, of Davenport. la.; Hon. A. C. Lati- 
)re. of Belton, S. C; Hon. D. Meekison, of Napoleon, 
; Hon. Geo. W. Prince, of Galesburg, 111.; Hon. 
;o. W. Steele, of Marion. Ind.; Hon. J. B, Showalter, 
Chicora, Pa. ; Hon. J. R. Thayer, of Worcester. Mass. ; 
m. V. Warner, of Clinton, 111.; Hon. G. A. Waymouth, 
Fitchburg, Mass. ; Hon. Edgar Weeks, of Mt. Clemens, 
ich. 
Most of the responses received as yet are from pomts m 
; Middle West, there having not yet been time to hear 
)m the more distant portions of the United States, 
ould the total number of those joining the expedition 
Dt up thirty to fifty names, it will be quite enough to 
ieguard success for the whole enterprise, for that would 
;an an adequate and satisfactory investigation of the 
Iuntry, which is all the projectors of the enterprise ever 
<ed or wanted. There has been no scheme to put 
rough, and it has always been reiterated that if it should 
t appear proper and fit to Congress to set aside a large 
dy of this Minnesota wilderness, just as it did a large 
dy of the more remote and scarcely less interesting 
illowstone wilderness, then there would never be heard 
; first murmur from those who have begun the move- 
snt to that end. Sometimes it may be difficult for a 
,blic man or a private man to believe that such a move- 
snt can be begun or carried on without some scheme 
iden behind it or boldly exposed through it. There is 
I such scheme in this. The members of Congress who 
iss the trip will miss a pleasure, but they can still vote 
I the matter when it comes up in Congress, and there 
II be enough eve-witnesses to tell them how to vote, 
le Minnesota National Park and Forestry Association 
s never presumed to tell any Congressman how to vote, 
has only offered to lay the facts before him, or rather, 
rhaps. to lay him before the facts. 
Col Cooper, the tireless worker for this Minnesota re- 
rve plan, is to-day in St. Paul on business connected 
th the expedition. , . . . , 
Sept. 15.— Three more acceptances of invitations by 
embers of Congress arrived at headquarters of the 
innesota National Park and Forestry Association this 
orning. making nineteen acceptances at hand at this 
,te, with still about 400 members to hear from. It is 
ought that the trip will be a success. 
The meeting of members of the Association at the 
.rlors of the Commercial Club, St. Paul, Minn., on the 
ening of Tuesday, this week, was a notable event, many 
irsons of consequence being on hand, among these Dr. 
A Schenck, formerly of Berlin, now of the Vander- 
It forests at Biltmore, N. C, and recognized _a.^ one 
the great authorities on forestry. Archbishop Ireland, 
Ivlmnesota, and Bishop Gilbert, of the same State, 
sre also at the meeting, besides many members of the 
zal fraternity and of business circles. Col, Cooper, of 
iicago, addressed the meeting, with other speakers, and 
e whole question of the reserve came into lucid and 
fective handling. It has always seemed that Dr. 
'henck had about the most thoughtful and convinang 
FOREST AND S3THEAM. 
position on this forestry proposition, and his address 
carries out his former theory, to-wit, that a forest reserve 
does not rob the settlers already on the ground, but gives 
them employment, and prepares the way for a yet larger 
and more useful population. Dr. Schenck said at the 
Commercial Club meeting that it was always to be borne 
in mind tliat forestry is not a sentimental art. It was 
tiseless to expect American lumbermen to observe the 
forester's precautions so long as it does not pay them to 
observe such precautions. When matters had changed so 
that it was money in the pockets of the land owner to 
cultivate trees upon land fit for little else, one could urge 
the owner to encourage forestry. 
Dr. Schenck laid stress upon the contention that it was 
not possible, nor even desirable, that all lands once pro- 
ducing forests should be reforested. A great deal of that 
land, especially in America, had proved very good for 
agricultural purposes. Therefore, until agriculture in any 
section became profitable, it would be wiser to keep such 
lands ready for the plow instead of the axe. 
On the other hand, no small quantity of the former 
forest is almost worthless for any other purpose than that 
of cultivating trees. Such lands, then, should be re- 
forested. In Europe about one-fourth of the whole area 
of the country was under forest. In America it might 
perhaps be better, under existing conditions of popu- 
lation, fertility of the soil and the like, to increase that 
proportion to one-third. 
The two principal obstacles to reforesting here were 
forest fires and over-taxation. There would be little 
encouragement for any one to start a fresh growth of 
timber if that timber was likely to be burnt down. And 
as to taxation, it was wise to remember that unless prices 
of lumber advanced remarkably the statement will hold 
true that the natural revenue from the growth of timber 
does not exceed 4 per cent, per annum upon the value 
of the land. Hence the highest reasonable taxation 
should not exceed 2 per cent, per annum. Any higher 
taxation would make forestry unprofitable._ 
It was becoming a strong government like that of the 
United States to preserve and increase the national for- 
ests. Weak governments had always been recklessly 
improvident of forest wealth. During the Revolution 
France had sold so many of the State forests that their 
relative area was reduced from 25 to 16 per cent. The 
first Napoleon had quickly arrested this extravagance. 
Bavaria had once been stripped in like manner by in- 
competent rulers. That waste is now being repaired at 
great expense. 
Dr. Schenck recommended the policy of the Canadian 
Government, which sells the timber unon its lands.^ I)ut 
does not sell the timber land itself. Thus the national 
forest can be readily perpetuated. If the 10,000,000 acres 
of forest in northern Minnesota could be preserved, it 
would form the most royal preserve in all the world. 
Movements of "Western Sportsmen. 
Sept. 16. — Mr. John Sterneman, o£ Muscatine, la., 
passed through Chicago this week and outfitted for a trip 
to Eagle River, Wis., after muscallunge. 
Mr. S. D. McLeish, of Evansville, Ind., left this week 
for a fishing trip on the Eagle waters of Wisconsin. 
Mr. C. S. Petrie, fire marshal of this city, and one of 
the oldest of our old-time sportsmen, is lying at his home 
dangerously ill, and his condition occasions his friends 
some anxiety. Mr. Petrie is a man of fine phj^sique and 
constitution, and it is within hope that he may soon be 
around again. 
Removed. 
The Economic Smokeless Powder Company, of this 
city, lately removed their offices to Hammond, Ind., to be 
in closer touch with their plant, and from their new place 
report a fine business and a trade which is on the increase. 
•Snipe. 
Jacksnipe have appeared in some numbers in upper 
Indiana, and yesterday and the day before some very fair 
bags were made around Lake George, Hyde Lake, and 
near Lake Station, Ind. 
Chickens in the Pine Country. 
One of the most satisfactory trips of which I have had 
word was that made by Mr. Neal Brown and wife, of 
Wausau, Wis., whose party I joined this week at Babcock, 
Wis. We had a very delightful and fairly successful hunt, 
and I enjoyed it thoroughly, more especially as it was an 
entirely new thing in my experience. The State of Wis- 
consin is a grand one for sportsmen, offering the best 
of deer shooting, and angling in almost every line one 
could ask. It also has fine ruffed grouse shooting, some 
quail and woodcock shooting, some of the best canvas- 
back shooting in America, and about as good sport on all 
around duck shooting as most of our Western regions 
can boast. I 'had also long known that some very fair 
prairie chicken shooting was to be had in the lower part 
of Wisconsin, but I did not know that these birds were 
to be. found far up in the State in the pine woods coun- 
try. I had always been used to shooting prairie chickens 
in the prairie country, where the wild grass lands were 
broken up by wheat fields. This was in the long ago, and 
more recently I had come to suppose that praririe chicken 
shooting in this country was resolving itself into a ques- 
tion of corn and wheat fields. It never occured to me 
that one could get chicken shooting, and very good 
chicken shooting, too, in just about such slashed-oflF coun- 
try as one would expect to find good for ruffed grouse. I 
am continually discovering that I don't know everything 
in the world, and perhaps a great many persons do not 
know what good prairie chicken shooting there is in this 
part of Wisconsin. 
I do not know just how far Babcock is north of Chi- 
cago, but I left Chicago at 10:30 in the evening on the 
Milwaukee & St. Paul road, and got there about 6 o'clock 
in the morning. The whole train was filled up with 
chicken huaters. The baggage car was full of dogs and 
the aisles of the sleeping cars were packed with guns and 
cases. I had supposed that 1 was about the only man 
who had ever heard of the chicken shooting in that coun- 
try, but the officials of the road told me that a great 
many people were going up into that country this fall 
I think fully a dozen men got off at points near Bab- 
cock, several going to Nekoosa. These men had been 
there before, and they told rae that I would find the shoot- 
^47 
ing not along stubble fields, for there were no stubble 
fields, but in stump grounds and heavily covered marshes. 
I found their statements correct. 
Babcock is in a district which was lumbered off for its 
pine some forty or fifty years ago. Some of the hard 
wood has also been cut, and there remains rather a bar- 
ren and desolate looking country, covered with fallen 
trees, burned stubs of pine, poplar thickets and wide ex- 
panses of grassy marsh running in between the ridges, 
which have been stripped of their timber. The town of 
Babcock itself was made a division point at the time the 
railroad went through. There was on auction sale of lots, 
one brief day of glory, and then Babcock settled back with 
a dull, heavy sag into a position from which it has never 
since attempted to emerge. A so-called farming com- 
munity has tried to settle up that country, but the class 
of the population is like the soil itself, sullen and uncom- 
promising. Every man hates his neighbor cordially, and 
hates himself as well. The ground, though underlaid with 
sand, is low and damp, and will not raise wheat or corn in 
any great acreage. There are but two products — hay and 
buckwheat. Miles and miles of good hay grounds lie 
waiting for the mower, and a few men are engaged in 
putting up hay on a considerable scale. How any farmer 
makes a living there I cannot tell, for in twenty miles of 
country I saw no crops except some straggling fields of 
buckwheat. Around these buckwheat fields the prairk 
chickens are concentrated more or less, but it is against 
the law to let a dog run in the standing crops, and the 
farmer of that country who sees a shooter come on his 
land usually goes into hysterics until the shooter leaves or 
gives him a dollar. It is a solemn, weird, doleful sort of 
country. You wouldn't see a smile there in a hundred 
years, and every one acts as though he wanted to make 
you unhappy because he is unhappy himself. 
But, though this was once a country of pine, it is still 
a country of grass, and therefore you have the secret of 
the presence of the prairie chicken. There are literarlly 
scores of miles of breeding ground — a wilderness over 
which it is not possible to drive with a wagon, and with 
cover so dense that no dog can hunt it out completely 
and no man walk over it or ride over it with ease. In 
these wide seas of broken grass lands there is a splendid 
harborage for the pinnated and the sharp-tailed grouse. 
The latter birds are much the more numerous and out- 
number the former about three to one. The local shoot- 
ers call the pinnated grouse the "regular prairie chicken" 
in distinction from the sharp-tail. They tell me that the 
birds stay out in the grass country and live on grasshop- 
pers until the time of the frosts, and then they begin to 
pack up and hang around these little stubble fields of 
buckwheat. I think the real cause for the packing up of 
the grouse in all the Western country is the fact that the 
grasshoppers are killed by the frost. The grasshopper is 
the favorite food of young prairie chickens. 
Good Luck. 
I have at divers times in the columns Of the Forest 
AND Stream reverted to my fondness for the meat dog, 
and mentioned my own luckiness in faUing in with the 
same. Indeed, as I have remarrked, I am sure if I should 
fall off the bridge into the Chicago River I should come 
up with a meat dog in one hand and the best fellow in the 
world in the other. I did not fall into the river this week, 
but had much the rest of the experience. Mr. Brown, of 
Wausau, Wis., I had never met before, but he is surely 
the best fellow in the world, and his Gordon setter Jimmy 
is a meat dog. with the simple and direct habit of going 
where the birds are, and not wasting time in putting on 
any airs for style, speed and other frills and furbelows. 
Then again, we had with us young Varney, of Babcock, 
and his own meat dog, a long-eared pointer which he 
called Cub. Cub would hardly win on the bench, for he 
is about 8ft. long and has feet the size of a pie pan, but 
he could take those feet over the soft ground all day long, 
and he showed all the sagacity of the old-time chicken 
dog, which I have always thought was a most admirable 
animal. I am pleased to say also that Cub was broken to 
retrieve, a most valuable thing in this heavy grass country, 
and he saved us many a bird we otherwise would have 
lost, and never lost one which was knocked dowm In- 
deed, he pointed once in the grass and caught a crippled 
bird which none of our party had shot. At another time, 
after we had about given up huntng for a bird which Mr. 
Brown had knocked down, Cub came along half an hour 
later, took up the trail and found the bird about 200yds. 
from where we sought for it, bringing it in still alive. 
Both these dogs did us grand service on our first day, 
the weather being moist and damp all day; but the next 
day came off very hot, so that both men and dogs were 
nearly helpless. 
I found that Mr. Brown had arranged everything per- 
fectly before I arrived at Babcock, and there was little for 
me to do except climb into the wagon and start out 
There were three or four other parties which went out of 
town that morning, mostly of non-resident shooters, so 
that I think fully thirty or forty guns were in operation 
in that neighborhood. A local paper stated that by Sept. 
I there had been 235 resident shooting licenses taken out 
in that country, so it would appear that although this is 
a good chicken country, it is not being left altogether 
alone. We heard a great deal of shooting all day long, 
but most of the parties made the mistake of hunting all 
in a bunch, so that if a bird went up everybody shot at it. 
Sometimes we would hear a dozen shots fired in quick 
succession— enough to clean out a whole covey— yet when 
we met any shooters it seemed they had no more birds 
than we, and at the hotel that night we discovered that 
our party was high bag, getting twenty-four birds, the 
nearest to our number being nineteen. There were four 
guns in our party, yet every one knows that two guns 
will kill as many chickens as four. We usually hunted 
pretty closely together for the sake of companionship and 
did not hurry ourselves, but took things easy, so that I 
must say we had as pleasant a day as I ever passed in the ^ 
field Mrs. Brown has been using a shotgun for about 
half a dozen years, and she is a very clever wing shot. 
She killed fully her share of the bag. One could only 
compliment her very much on her pluckiness, for she 
walked all day through the tangled grass, which was 
sometimes up to one's chin and full of water, so that we 
were all as wet as though we had plunged into the nvef. 
Though rather slight of figure, Mrs. Brown seemed to 
stand it as well as any of us, and moreover abswutdy a&- 
