Forest and Stream: 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 
Six Months, $2. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1899. 
f VOL. LIII.— No. 26, 
INo. 346 Broadway, Ne%v York 
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particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iv. 
FOR CHRISTMAS READING. 
The columns of Forest and Stream this week con- 
tain a store of capital reading for Christmas. Next week 
will be given a double page supplement illustration of the 
primitive American hunter's way of buffalo hunting. 
TREES ON THE WESTERN PLAINS. 
It has long been believed that one of the principal 
causes for the absence of timber on the Western plains 
was the fires which constantly swept over them, set, as 
many persons believe, by the Indians, either for the 
purpose of renewing the grass, or to drive the game ani- 
mals from place to place, or to baffle pursuing enemies. 
This explanation has been generally accepted, and is no 
doubt a true one. It is probable that the fires, by burn- 
ing close up to the edges of the existing timber patches 
along the streams and thus destroying the seedling trees, 
had more influence than any other cause in keeping the 
plains treeless. 
As long ago as 1897 Prof. Chas. E. Bessey showed that 
there were reasons for believing that the B.ines of western 
Nebraska are moving eastward over the plains, in places 
where the fires have been kept out, and cattle are not 
permitted to destroy, and man himself is not too actively 
engaged in the work of forest destruction. Since that time 
observations on these Western pines have been continued, 
and Prof. Bessey feels certain that in western Nebraska 
and in portions of the Black Hills of South Dakota these 
trees tend to advance over the plains and in many places 
actually do advance at a rate sufficiently rapid to be easily 
observed. 
Prof. Bessey's observations have not been confined to 
western Nebraska. He has also studied tree areas in the 
eastern portions of the State; and here still more con- 
clusive evidence is found that the trees are advancing 
upon the Nebraska plains and advancing quite rapidly. 
The traveler who journeys up the principal streams finds 
them wooded with trees that are old, but as he passes 
out to the side branches and to the little temporary rills 
which water the upper basins, he finds that the trees are of 
small size and are much younger. It is a very rare 
exception to find large trees near the upper end of a 
forest belt, and of course by upper is here meant western 
or northwestern, since all the streams flow east or a little 
south of qast. The rule is that near the upper edge of 
any tree area there is much shrubbery, and with the shrub- 
bery are mingled young trees not more than fifteen or 
twenty years old. Obviously where these conditions pre- 
vail almost universally, the young trees have grown since 
the country began to be settled and since it has thus been 
protected from fire. 
This condition of things is so generalty prevalent and 
its cause is so evident that the matter has impressed it- 
self on many of the older settlers who recall the country 
as it was in its almost treeless condition. Persons who 
have resided long in one locality testify that the native 
timber in their neighborhood has crept up the water 
courses or has widened out from near the stream banks 
so as to cover a much greater area than formerly. Others 
declare that ravines, where formerly, in the old days of 
frequent prairie fires, no timber grew, now contain large 
patches of woodland. The dates of this testimony, run- 
ning back as the}'- do as far as 1872, are extremely in- 
structive. 
It is on the treeless plains that people appreciate at its 
true value the presence of tree growth and it is to be 
hoped that the increasing area of Nebraska's woodland may 
be so protected that in time its forests may become of real 
commereial value to the State. It must be remembered 
that Kansas and Nebraska are both of them fairly well 
watered, and that over much of the eastern portion of 
both States there is now a considerable rain fall. It 
will be interesting to see how far the observations here 
noted shall be confirmed later in other States where the 
climate is more aritj. 
AN EXTRAORDINARY DECISION. 
The Supreme Court of California has rendered an ex- 
traordinary decision in the case of a Stanislaus county 
hunter who killed game for export from the county in 
violation of a county ordinance which provides that 
game may not be exported. This the Supreme Court 
says is a violation of the right of private property as 
defined and regulated by general law. In this the Cali- 
fornia court runs counter to the precedents and to com- 
mon sense. Nothing is , better established in the entire 
realm of game protective legislation than the right of the 
State to provide the purpose for which game may be 
killed and to regulate the disposition of it after it has 
been killed. Under a law which forbids the export of 
game, the individual who takes the game cannot acquire 
in it any such right of private property as will permit 
him to export it. He can legally acquire only the right 
which the law gives him, and which in the present, in- 
stance is to use the game within the county where killed. 
The State has the same undoubted right to prohibit the 
export of game that it has to prohibit the keeping of 
game in possession after a given period. If the principle 
upon which this California decision is based were rightly 
to apply to the export of game it would apply with equal 
force to the possession of game, and the next step would 
be for the California justices to declare that the restric- 
tion of the time in which game might be held in posses- 
sion was ah unwarranted interference with private prop- 
erty. The decision is so in violation of principles upheld 
by the highest courts of other States and the Supreme 
Court of the United States that there is no reason to 
believe it will stand against appeal if the authorities shall 
carry it up. This "private property" delusion respecting 
game is one of which it might reasonably be expected the 
California judicia.ry should be free. 
THE CREE HALF-BREEDS. 
At the collapse of the so-called Riel rebellion, a laj'ge 
number of half-breeds, who had presumably been con- 
cerned in it, fled across the border from.'tM Northwest 
Territories and settled in Montana. At the same time a 
number of Cree Indians made a similar migration. All 
these people have since resided in Montana, although on 
one or two occasions United States troops at the request 
of the Indian Bureau have gathered up the Indians, taken 
them to the boundary line, and thrust them across into 
Canada. But so soon as the troops moved awa}^ the In- 
dians returned to the places along the Missouri and Milk 
rivers, where they have been accustomed to live. 
Many of the Cree half-breeds settled in the Judith 
Basin, where some of them have done well as farmers and 
stock raisers. Others, however, spend their whole time 
hunting and trapping, destroying game, fur and fish at 
all seasons, without regard to the law of the land, of Avhich 
they are presumably ignorant. It will be remembered 
that two or three years since these half-breeds got in 
among a .little bunch of buffalo which still ranged in 
the neighborhood of the Dry Fork of the Missouri, and 
killed about sixteen of them, which was perhaps more 
than half the herd. We believe that no steps were taken 
at the time to punish them for this, though there was 
talk of sending out troops to capture them. 
During last autumn these half-breeds have been hunt- 
ing as usiial, and as usual in violation of the law, and 
since their methods are so well known it would certainly 
seem worth the while of the authorities of Montana to 
take steps to put an end to this abuse. A very few con- 
victions would do this. It must be understood that these 
half-breeds have" no hunting rights in Montana or any- 
where else beyond those possessed by the ordinary white 
citizens of the State. Their case is not like that of 
certain tribes of Utes in Colorado, or certain Bannocks 
and Snakes in Idaho and Wj'oming, to which the United 
States long ago guaranteed forever the right to hunt on 
the unoccupied lands of the United States. On the con- 
trary, these half-breeds are immigrants, real outlanders, 
and should be held to a strict accountability to the law. 
This law provides that everj^ person who willfully hunts, 
chases or runs with dogs any buffalo, moose, elk, deer, 
antelope. Rocky Mountain goat or mountain sheep, shall 
be punishable. Now all through this autumn of 1899 
ll:e Canadian half-breeds have been hunting in the Mis- 
souri River Vallev feelow the mouth of Arrow Creek, 
running white-tailed deer with dogs and killing many 
of them. There is every reason to believe that they are 
doing, this to-day, and that they will continue to do it 
until the spring, for they pay no regard to times or 
seasons as established by the game lawrs. 
Montana game has already become so scarce that what 
is left ought to be protected. It is probable that the 
rounding up by the proper authorities of the few of these 
half-breeds will have a wonderful effect on the Montana 
game supply within the next few years. 
NOT SPORT. 
If it is true that nothing affords a better mirror of the 
characteristics of our ordinary life than the newspapers of 
the day, it is also true that too often the newspapers 
seize on the worst characteristics of that life and unduly 
emphasize these, while less than is just is said concern- 
mg the better side of humanity. The every day accounts 
of the world's life show very plainly how much of the 
savage is left in the civilized man of to-day. To say 
nothing of the more vulgar and commonplace crimes, or 
of the horrible outbursts of criminal excitement which 
from time to tim^e flame out all over the land in lynchings, 
often countenanced and approved by the so-called best 
people of a community, we often see in accounts of the 
amusements of the people mention of unnecessary cruel- 
ties practiced on animals which are almost beyond belief. 
In- certain parts of the country" it was for years the prac- 
tice to turn loose rabbits in tight inclosures to be chased 
by dogs until captured. Later, this was modified by pro- 
viding inclosures with exits too small for the dog, but 
which the rabbits could use — if they discovered them. 
Recent accounts of wolf chases in the West tell how 
the animals pursued had first been captured in steel 
traps, and then, maimed and crippled, were turned loose 
to be hunted by the dogs. The matter is treated as if it 
were the most ordinary thing in the world, and it is 
altogether probable that it never occurred to whoever 
wrote the article that there was anything unusual about 
the occurrence. 
A large portion of such cruelties are due merely to 
thoughtlessness, which in such a case is only another 
name for selfishness. They are not due usually to the 
actual desire to inflict pain. But it may be questioned 
whether the thoughtlessness is not as reprehensible as the 
intentional cruelty would be. Certainly the result of the 
one differs in no respect from those of the other. 
One cannot walk along the city streets without each 
day seeing trucks and -drays so overloaded that the animals 
which haul them can only just drag them along and be- 
come stalled on reaching the slightest ascent. .Such over- 
loading is less the result of intention than of the same 
carelessness and thoughtlessness which indeed are at the 
bottom of much of the wrongdoing of the world. 
In the past we Americans have been disposed to speak 
of the brutality of the Spaniards and to plume ourselves 
upon the fact that bull fights are not permitted in this 
country, thanking God that we are not as other men. If 
we are not, the difference is one of degree only, and there 
still remains in this land work enough to be done by 
thoughtful people and by our humane societies. 
Malcolm Graham, of the well-known firm of Hartley & 
Graham, of this city, died at his home in Seabright. N. J., 
on Monday, Dec. 18, aged sixty-seven years. By his 
death the sporting goods trade loses one of its oldest and 
most prominent members. The original firm of Schuyler, 
Hartley and Graham was formed' in 1853 ; for many years 
it was in Maiden Lane, removing thence to the present 
Broadway establishment. Mr. Graham was one of the 
owners and officers of the Union Metallic Cartridge Com- 
pany, the Bridgeport Gun Implement Company and the 
Remington Arms Compam'. He was a man of wide social 
activities and a member of many clubs and societies. 
The birds of the National Zoological Park at Washing- 
ton form a considerable collection, and will doubtless be 
largely augmented now that as a nation we are reaching 
out into tropical climes, where birds of beaittiful plumage 
are to be had. Southern species, such as pelicans, flamin- 
goes, etc., have already suffered at the park for want 
of suitable winter quarters, and no time should be lost in 
providing a bird house that would prove both useful and 
ornamental. It is to be hoped that those in authority 
may succeed in impressing on .Congress the immecliate 
and urgent need of such a building. 
