Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
CoPTOiGHT, 1899, BY Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. } 
Six Months, |2. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 18 99. 
f VOL. LIII.— Kg. it. 
i No, 846 Broadway, New York 
ZU Jm$t and Stream Platform Plank* 
'^Tke sale of game sliould be forbidden at all seasons.' 
— Forest and Stream, Feb. 3, 1894. 
FORESTS AND FOREST FIRES. 
The damage wrought by forest fii^es, though it is known 
to be great, is very hard to measure, or even to estimate. 
Yet in statistics brought together by the Division of 
Forestry at Washington we have some hint of the loss 
that these fires cause to the country. The records indi- 
cate that the direct loss from this source is not less than 
$20,000,000; but to this must be added the still greater 
loss that is only to be guessed at in the injury from dimi- 
nution of the water supply, the burning of the soil, the 
killing of the young trees and the loss of gain which the 
young forest would make year after year, which last 
may amount to several hundred board feet per acre each 
year. It may be possible with continued investigation to 
reach a closer estimate of this total loss, but already it 
may be assumed that the average yearly loss from forest 
fires in the United States is probably more than $50,000,- 
000. The matter is one of such great interest to the peo- 
ple at large, and above all to those inhabiting States or 
Territories possessing great forests, that it is worthy of 
the closest attention. 
In a recent article in the National Geographic Maga- 
zine Mr. GifFord Pinchot has most interestingly dis- 
cussed the effect of forest fires, not as agents of destruc- 
tion, but as modifiers of the composition of the forest 
and of its mode of life. In this relation the forest fire has 
been little studied, and information concerning it is to be 
found only jn the fo.rest itself, sometimes on the surface 
and at others buried far beneath the soil. All the forests 
that we know, or have any record of, have been them- 
selves the successors of others which at intervals have 
been burned down, and from whose ashes others have 
arisen. Often in the forests of to-day we can find traces 
of fires which took place a hundred years ago, and some- 
times still further back. 
It has long been believed, and is now fairly well estab- 
lished, that a very large portion of the treeless area of 
North America has been kept bare of timber by fire, and 
the readiness with which trees grow and seed themselves 
on the prairies when these grass lands are protected from 
fire is good evidence in favor of this belief. The oak 
openings and the so-called fire glades in timbered regions 
are due to the same causes. 
The different sorts of trees found in a forest have differ- 
ent powers of resistance to fire. These resisting qualities 
are of two principal kinds, the one adapted to protecting 
the individual tree solely through its own powers of re- 
sistance, the other to provide for the continuance of the 
species without regard to the single tree. 
Examples of the first sort are found in the Western 
larch — the extremely thick bark of which is almost fire- 
proof, and is so good a non-conductor that it protects the 
living tissues of the tree, even against fires hot enough 
to scorch the trunk fifty or seventy-five feet above the 
ground — and in the big trees of California, whose bark is 
a perfect protection against fire. The longleaf pine has 
in addition to its thick bark another means of protection. 
The very young trees commonly grow amid thick grass 
and during the first four or five years of their life reach 
a height of but four or five inches. But while the stem 
during this time makes little growth, the long needles 
shoot up and bend over so as to reach the ground in a 
circle about the stem. This barrier of green needles 
burns only with difficulty, and besides this it shades out 
the grass about the stem, and so furnishes a double fire 
resisting shield about the young tree. 
The second method of protection against fire, which 
has to do with the continued propagation of the species 
even after the individual trees have been destroyed, h ex- 
emplified by the lodge-pole pine, a species of wide distri- 
bution in the Rocky Mountains. This thin-barked tree 
is readily destroyed by fire; but nevertheless it is gaining 
ground through this very agency of destruction, and re- 
placing over great areas the thick-barked species like 
the red fir and the Western larch. For several years after 
they are matured the lodge-pole pine hoards up the ripe 
seeds in its cones; and as fire seldom burns down the 
trees, merely killing them and leaving them to fall when 
their rootf |]^ve decayed, the cones are not burned, but 
remain uninjured to distribute their seeds, from which a 
new growth of trees springs up, in an increased ratio to 
the remainder of the forest. 
The distribution of the red fir, which is the most val- 
uable commercial tree of Washington, is governed so far 
as we know at present by the action of fire. Other trees, 
like the hemlock and the white cedar, have been destroyed 
and their place has been taken by the red fir. 
AH this, of course, does not imply that these costly 
fires which constantly devastate the West are desirable, 
but the study of the general effect of fire on the forest is 
most interesting, and is likely to be of the highest eco- 
nomic value. 
SPORT AND DRESS. 
The development of sport has had a tremendous influ- 
ence upon dress and the tendency has been in the direc- 
tion 'of the rational and convenient. Yachting, lawn ten- 
nis, wheeling, golf, each in turn has encouraged the sim- 
ple and useful in pattern; and it were difficult to deter- 
mine whether man or woman had gained the more, the 
one with his knickerbockers and the other with her 
shortened skirts. Both have renewed their youth with 
their short clothes. 
The requirements of fashion with respect to clothing 
are hardly less rigorous in sport than in respect to the 
uniforming of employees, or than those social rules which 
"call- in" the straw hat in autumn or formulate the eti- 
quette of everyday dress. And there is excellent reason 
in this. The special wheeling suit, for instance, is de- 
manded and is the fashion, because it is the one style 
best adapted to the purpose;' with it the management and 
propulsion of the wheel are accomplished with less exer- 
tion and fatigue than when the rider is clad in his ordi- 
nary cumbersome clothing. Nor is any caprice of fash- 
ion likely to bring into use in the realm of outdoor sports 
garments which interfere with comfort and convenience. 
The dudes of fashion may suffer tortures if they must to 
be in style, but when it comes to sport considerations of 
utility control. 
The sportsman's wear bought in the gUh stores and the 
fishing tackle shops is an evolution of experience in the 
field and on the stream. From the cap and the shooting 
coat with its many pockets to the wading trousers and 
the waterproof shoes, in material, pattern and make, 
each article is the product of common sense as applied 
to equipment for a particular purpose. The well-dressed 
sportsman is the one who is clothed in the garments 
most convenient for the pursuit of shooting or fishing. 
Fashion determines here, as in other fields, but the fash- 
ion is one which grows out of approval of those forms 
which have been adopted only because contributing to 
comfort. 
The clothes do not make the sportsman, but they do 
add to his satisfaction in the field, so soon, at least, as 
the painful newness has worn off. The older the shoot- 
ing suit, with its many signs of wear as so many evi- 
dences of long experience, the more grateful it is. In- 
deed, only when the freshness has been dulled with the 
service of years and weathered with the sun and the rain 
and mud and sleet and hail and snow and crock and 
smudge and smoke and stain and grease and grime, 
when the garment has become in fact "the old hunting 
coat" and is invested with the reminiscences and asso- 
ciations of the years, does the muse compel to verse in its 
praise. We have had poems on the old hunting coat; 
did any one ever dream of apostrophizing the new? 
There are those — you meet such men now and then — 
who entertain the common notion that the hunting coat 
makes the sportsman ; but while they rig themselves out 
in the most approved dress, and parade the field as per- 
fect paragons of the latest thing in- style, they show them- 
selves perhaps only shams and duffers as sportsmen and 
shots. The costume serves to intensify their verdancy* 
A greenhorn in "correct styles" is several shades greener 
than a greenhorn in an ordinary everyday suit of clothes. 
To- dress- correctly, or as nearly to the correct thing as 
opportu^iity affords, is to begin right, but after all it is 
the beginning only. Not until one has outworn sundry 
suits of hunting toggery shall he have acquired that fund 
of field lore and the wisdom of the woods which cause the 
rest of the camp-fire company to grow still and give at- 
tentive ear when he begins to talk- 
' There is ease and free4om in the old suit. Bring it 
from its long concealment; put it on for these glorious 
autumn days and revert to the old-clothes stage of real 
living in the field. 
A CONNECTICUT ST. GEORGE. 
The world dearly loves to be humbugged, if only the 
delusion has to do with snakes. There is the old belief, 
for instance, concerning the deadly character of the flat- 
headed adder of New England. The New York Herald 
had a highly sensational story the other day from Dan- 
bury, Conn., relating the heroic adventure of the adder, 
as described by a Dr. Allan P. McDonald. The report 
describes the occurrence as "an encounter with a ven- 
omous snake in one of the busiest streets of the city." 
It appears that as Dr. McDonald was driving past one 
of the Danbury hat factories he discovered a "large snake 
coiled upon a window sill ready to strike." Shouting to 
several people who were approaching, he warned them, 
of their danger and soon had the street cleared for action. 
Approaching the snake, he discovered that it was a flat-= 
headed adder, "one of the raost venomous snakes of this 
neighborhood, and now' almost extinct except in the 
mountains." The physician studied the serpent's move- 
ments for several minutes, and was convinced that it was 
lying in wait for a victim. The snake in turn noticed 
the physician when he was within several feet of the win- 
dow, and its raised head followe,d his every motion, but 
it did not have the snake sense to know that the man, too, 
was out for a victim. The Doctor summoned a posse of 
laborers and posted them along the curb; then repairing 
to a neighboring foundry he armed himself with a hefty 
iron pipe and "began the battle." The spectators looked 
on, spellbound with terror, and nobody daring to volun - 
teer to assist the physician when the deadly nature of the 
snake became known. Again and again the doughty 
Danbury St. George advanced to the attack, and again 
and again "the dangerous motions of the snake" caused 
him to retreat. As the iron pipe descended for the final 
blow the snake sprang toward it and the affrighted man's 
arm quailed so that the stroke fell short. But "before 
the snake could glide near enough to reach" the devoted 
Doctor its back was broken with a quick blow, and the 
viper was dispatched, whereupon the spectators applauded 
lustily and Danbury breathe^ freely once more. The 
snake measured 2ft. in length and was half as large around 
as a mans wrist. When we remember that the flat-headed 
adder of New England is a non-venomous snake and 
not nearly so dangerous to human kind as are the pugna- 
cious bantams Dr. Jones writes of, we might be inclined 
to ridicule the Danbury incident and to belittle Dr. Mc- 
Donald's feat. It is pitiful indeed that at this age and in 
a community of schools a professioinal man should show 
himself so ignorant in such a simple thing. On the other 
hand, we might not perhaps reasonably require of a 
Danbury physician that he should be so far in advance of 
the communty in which he lives as to encounter with 
equanimity a 2ft. harmless snake in the street. More- 
over, if Dr. McDonald actually believed himself engaged 
in desperate conflict with a deadly serpent his conduct 
under the circumstances had just as much of the heroic 
in its as if the reptile had been a rattler. 
The guide registering system of Maine was designed in 
part to insure that sportsmen would be provided with 
guides who were safe companions in the woods. Now that 
a Maine visiting sportsman has been killed by his reg- 
istered guide in mistake for a deer, it is manifest that the 
license does not work altogether in the way anticipated. 
The fact is that no system ever has been devised or ever 
can be, short of absolute prohibition of the use of a gun, to 
restrain the trigger-finger of the fatuous shooter who will 
not wait to make sure of what he is shooting at. There may 
be deer galore in Maine woods; but there are deer 
hunters galore there too; and the degree of hunting 
caution demanded is correspondingly higher to-day than 
ever before. In a deer country thickly populated vinth 
human beings there is always the possibility if not the 
probability that a moving object is a human being; and 
if it is of a dun color that it is a man in a hunting suit 
instead of a deer in the blue. One expedient for reducing 
the peril of Maine hunting is to make provision that the 
guide shall leave his own rifle at home. That wovM withi 
some parties cut the armament in two and lessen thg 
danger of fatality by one-half . " ' ''^ 
