Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, 
i A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, |2. 
\ 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1899. 
VOL. LIII.— No. 2D. 
No. 346 Broadway, New York 
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. 
WIND FARMS. 
We have frequent occasion to refer to the highly un- 
natural history of the daily papers which often imposes 
'ju that large section of the reading public which knows 
nothing about natural history but is credulous enough to 
Ijclieve everything it sees- in print. 
There recently appeared in the New York Sun a half- 
column lettei-, perhaps from Mulberryville, fa., which 
purported to give an account of various farms in that 
State which were devoted to raising wild animals for 
commercial purposes. Among these were named tracts 
on which leeches, frogs, rattlesnakes, coyotes, skunks, 
rabbits and many other creatures were bred and raised 
to sell. According to this veracious letter, the rabbit 
farmer had this season sold 1,000,000 rabbits, and had 
enough breeders left to rear twice as many next year. 
The leech farmer was growing rich at a rate of great 
rapidity, and so were all the other men interested in the 
vermin farms. It is a fact worth noting that the people 
told of in these accounts never fail. They are always 
successful, and in the end become disgustingly rich. 
The Springfield Republican printecl a sarcastic com- 
ment the other day on the misinformation appearing in 
the daily press about the Indians. It said: 
Yellow journalism sent afloat the other day a statement that the 
Sac and Fox Indians were on the warpath in Ohio, and were 
going to lay waste Toledo. The last enrollment of the tribe 
shows a total of 390. Of this number 101 males are over eighteen 
years of age; of this number forty are willing to submit to and 
fall in with the plan of education and improvement as outlined 
and provided for by the general government. Of the remaining 
sixty-one. abotit twelve are old men, three of them being entirely 
blind. 
To this it might be added that as with the snakes in 
Ireland there are no Sacs and Foxes in Ohio. 
Similar absurdities appear constantly in the daily papers, 
but life is far too short to be spent in going about 
correcting the blunders made by careless writers or in- 
tentional fakirs on subjects about which the essential facts 
are perfectly well known. 
Let us go back to Mulberryville. The correspondent 
omitted to mention one industry that thrives near this 
future metropolis, namely, the pursuit of raising wind to 
sell to the daily papers. This vocation appears to be 
successfuly practiced by at least one individual there, who 
from time to time ships off to the newspapers a portion of 
the product of his farm, for which he perhaps receives 
cash, thus raising the wind in a double sense. In these 
days wind has a money value, and there are those who 
no longer say contemptuously, with the patriarch of old, 
'"Shall a man fill his belly with the east wind?" but are 
only too glad to take the wind from whatever quarter it 
may come, if by a simple process of assimilation they can 
turn it into the "long green." 
The fact that the wind farms flourish in many places 
all over the land, and that they find an unfailing market 
for their product, is an interesting sign of the times, and 
of the growing tendency of the present day in writing, a 
tendency that is seen wherever tj'pe is used to convey 
ideas — in newspapers, in magazines and in books. People 
are no longer content to have things told them simply as 
they occur. They want the adjectives piled on and the 
writing made fine: they Avant to be wrought up to the 
highest pitch; .thej'- want pepper in what they read to- 
day, even if to-morrow they must be told that the dish 
was really not even salted. 
And since people want this and are willing to pzy their 
monev for it, it is not surprising that authors and pub- 
lishers make haste to supply, it. 
An interesting example of the writing' of to-(!ay is seen 
in the accounts given in the London papers of the fighting 
a-t Modder River in South Africa. All accounts agree 
that on one side there were 6,000 or 7,ooe soldiers, on the 
other ro.OOn, and that the battle lasted fourteen hours, and 
was hotly contested. The English newspapers speak also 
of the accurate marksmanship of the Boers, tell of "the 
perfect hail of bullets," the "harvest of death," and how, 
if a man showed his head from behind his cover death 
was certain. At times the English troops came out from 
behind cover and rushed toward the enemy, and when 
they did that they "fell by hundreds." This sort of 
thing was going for fourteen hours, be it remembered, 
and the distance between the forces was, most of the time, 
less than 600 yards, and the British were then ex- 
posed on a flat plain, where there was no cover;, and 
yet the total ntimber of men killed on the British side is 
given by the newspapers as 128. And this is what — to 
quote the newspapers again— is "the bloodiest battle of 
the- century." 
The good old days when the wise man already quoted 
said, "My desire is that mine adversary had written a 
book." and when most of the other wise' men agreed with 
him, are past, and now one's nearest and dearest wish him 
to write and to keep on writing. 
This is a period of "hterature" run mad, of the manu- 
facture of books in immense numbers and great quan- 
tities. These books are made to sell, and the struggle to 
make them salable and successful is severe and contiqu- 
ous. Each author and each publisher strives constantly 
more and more to make his product more attractive than 
that of each other author and publisher. The result is a 
continual striving after something that shall astonish 
the public or that shall move it by playing upon its erno- 
tions, and the more sensational the work, the louder the 
praise sung by the writer's admirers. 
What the effect on the public mind of this flood ,of 
literature — some of it vicious and much of it worthless — 
remains to be seen. 
"HAVE THE DUCKS CHANGED THEIR FLIGHT r 
In another column is printed an inquiry frequently pro- 
pounded by sportsmen with regard to migratory birds. 
We have all heard it asked about ducks, woodcock, snipe 
and rail, and when it is asked it lisually means no more 
than that in some locality Avhere formerly they were 
plenty the birds now appear scarce. We are all very 
much disposed to endeavor to find or assign a plausible 
explanation for the growing scarcity of game birds, but 
we seem very unwalling to acknowledge the most self- 
evident and greatest cause of all, which is over-shooting. 
If we look back in the old books of fifty years ago on' 
ornithology or sport, or even to the early numbers of the 
older journals, we find that in those days birds were 
enormously abundant. Men had been killing them for a 
hundred years or more, but great stretches of uninhabited 
territory were still their undisturbed' breeding ground, the 
number of men who gunned was not very great, and their 
weapons were of a type which to-day would be called 
primitive. Now, the breechloader with its smokeless 
powder has taken the place of the muzzleloader, rail- 
roads carry the gunner wherever he wishes to go, the 
great breeding grounds of the Northwest have been in- 
vaded by settlers, and — ^more important than all — a hun- 
dred men are interested in shooting to-day for one that 
carried a gun thirty years ago. 
All this means that the Avorld is growing too small for 
the wild creatures that used to inhabit it. Civilized man 
penetrates everywhere, and where civilized man goes, and 
goes regularly, the wild birds or animals cannot exist. 
Without at all going into the merits of the question 
asked by our correspondent, it appears to us that the 
weather which has prevailed up to the date of his letter is 
ample explanation of the scarcity of ducks on the A'^'ir- 
ginia shore. Vntil after Dec. i the weather along the 
north Atlantic coast has been more like that of Septem- 
ber than of November, and there has been no reason for 
the birds to visit their feeding grounds in the South. 
Along much of the New England coast and on Long 
Island Sound fowl are still very abundant, and it is not 
likely that there will be much improvement toward the 
south until frost shall seal up the more northern feed- 
ing grounds, and thtts oblige the birds to continue their 
mijrration. 
Wc believe that the ducks are each year .fewer in nmn- 
bers than they were the year before, and this for the very 
good reason that more birds are killed during the months 
that the fowl are in the United States than are reared 
each summer. The birds are growing scarcer and will 
continue to do so, year by year, until some measures are 
taken to protect them during their southern flight by 
greatly reducing the number that are killed. One of the 
most obvious of these measures would be to abolish ab- 
solutely and everywhere spring shooting; another would 
be to limit the number of birds to be taken in a day or in 
a season by any one individual. Ultimately the matter 
will force itself on the attention of gunners, and will de- 
mand a remedy, and until public opinion shall act, there 
is no prospect of improved wildfowl shooting. 
ANTLER. ■ 
We record with sincere regret the passing away of our 
contributor whose pen name of Antler has so long been 
familiar to the readers of Forest and Stream. Mr. Strat- 
ton died at his home in Grand View, Tenn., on Nov. .30. 
The period of his life spans a notable stage in the de- 
velopment of the country and the changed conditions of 
living. Born in Massachusetts in 1812, he was of the 
sturdy stock of a generation that literally hewed its way 
into the wilderness and won the land for settlement. 
When he was four years old the family removed to Cat- 
taraugus county, N. Y.. where the nearest neighbor was 
eight miles away. The boy was brought up amid sur- 
roundings that went to develop a native taste for the 
woods and the hunt. His was a love of nature which 
abided with him through life. He passed months alone in 
the solitudes of the mighty forests. "In the early days of 
his manhood," writes one of him, "he was known far and 
wide as 'Leather Stocking,' which perhaps tells the whole 
story of Antler as a hunter." His contributions to these 
columns were largely reminiscent of the early days ; and 
in his personal correspondence he revealed the simplicity 
and ingenuousness of character which endeared him to 
his friends. His was a nature which had in it the purity 
and freshness of the mountain surroundings he chose for 
the home of his declining years. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Mr. Henry Stewart sends us an intelligently written 
description of the Southern mountain district which it is 
proposed shall be converted into a national forest preserve. 
At a convention held in Asheville, the other day, of those 
interested in the preserve project, a permanent organiza- 
tion was eft'ected under the name of the Southern Na- 
tional Park Association, and a systematic campaign will 
be conducted to create a public interest which shall result 
in action by Congress. As the speakers at the meeting 
well said, if we have established or are to establish na- 
tional parks in the West, like considerations call for 
setting apart _ forest reserves in the East. The special 
natural advantages of the region under consideration are 
such as to mark it for a public reservation; the plan 
should receive the cordial support of the country, because 
it is of national concern and benefit. 
On Thursday of this week the centenary of the death of 
George Washington (Dec. 14, 1799) was observed in 
various ways ; and the occasion prompted to a considera- 
tion of one phase and another of his character by press, 
platform and pulpit. The sketch of Lord Fairfax, the 
father of fox hunting in America, presents the youthful 
Washington as a sportsman. The love of the chase which 
is here so well pictured by Mr. Hagan remained with 
Washington all his life, and he was the first of a line of 
Presidents who found in some branch of field sports the 
diversion and recreation which not only showed them 
to be well-rounded men, but, we cannot doubt, greatly en- 
hanced the value of their public services. 
The North Carolina quail netter is an industrious and 
enterprising fellow, and the effect of his work is found 
in such scarcity of birds as is reported by a correspondent 
writing from Catfish in that State. And by one of the 
inconsistencies of human nature, it happens that the North 
Carolina illicit quail netter is aided, abetted, encouraged 
and rewarded by the Northern sportsmen — individuals and 
clubs — who buy the live birds for stocking purposes. 
The authorities have undertaken the prosecution of the 
Meadow Brook Hunt Club deer chasers who ran a deer 
with hounds on Thanksgiving day. The case should so be 
settled that no repetition of the hunt will be attemptg^ 
by the present generation at least. 
