310 
out over the mountains to Kentucky, and took his brother 
with him, and then sent his brother back home over the 
mountains to Virginia to get some powder and salt and 
things of that sort. His brother was gone a year. You 
can make the same trip on the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail- 
road now in ten "hours. 
George Washington was another Eastern man who had 
odd ideas. He started to build a canal across the AUe- 
fhany Mountains. He did build it, too, as far up the 
ames River Valley as Buchanan. He owned all that 
country, including the Greenbrier River and a million 
million dollars' worth of coal and iron, getting this in a 
land grant. He sold it out for chewing tobacco. If he had 
held it, he would be the richest man on earth to-day, if he 
wasn't dead. As to the canal, some one came along and 
built the old B. &. O. road, and it was all over with the 
canal. 
It was much later than the B. & O. that the C. & O. road 
was built. It also is over one of the loveliest parts of 
America. From Virginia to Kentucky — this is the New 
Mountain road, which takes the place of the Old Moun- 
tain road, over which D. Boone and his friends traveled. 
Virginia and Kentucky are two pretty warm States. 
On the train was a gentleman from. Richmond, Va., and 
we fell to talking about the Old Dominion. I ventured 
to say, just to show my historical knowledge, that Vir- 
ginia was in at the beginning of the United States. He 
said something very much better. "Yes," said he, "and by 
■, she'll be in at the finish, too !" 
The C. & O. Railroad runs eastward up the Ohio 
River 150 miles. Then it jumps to the Kanawha River; 
then it goes up the New River, whieh runs into the 
Kanawha River. After it leaves the New River it goes 
up the Greenbrier River. Then you are near the sum- 
mit, and not far from Old White Sulphur, and New Red 
Sulphur, and all sorts of other sulphur springs. You are 
also near the old McCoy and Hatfield family feud coun- 
try, but that has nothing to do with the sulphur. Going on 
East, you cross the Shenandoah and its lovely valley, go 
over the Blue Ridge and come into what my friend from 
Richmond calls God's country. It is indeed a lovely land. 
Some of my friends wanted a river awhile ago for a 
canoe trip. They should run this Greenbrier River. Wc 
ran along by it for fifty or sixty miles, and it drove me 
wild, A lovelier stream never lay out doors. My friend, 
Graham Harris, now of Chicago, but once of Virginia, 
says that the Greenbrier was always rated a good trout 
stream. Now they tell me it has been stocked with bass, 
and offers fine bass fishing. White Sulphur and the 
Greenbrier, both at one trip; that would be an ideal holi- 
day for some tired man — better, methinks, than even 
Hew York or Momence. 
The Greenbrier runs into the New River, and it is a 
.shame. It oug!:i to run on forever, clean and unsullied, 
and empty into some sweet cloud of a clear summer sky. 
The Greenbrier is deep, pure, green, a spring-fed lime- 
stone stream. The New River is different. Discolored 
with the wash of the mines, wide, tumbling, riotous, turbu- 
lent and discontented, this North Carolina River is not to 
be compared with the sweet Greenbrier. You cannot 
run the New River with a boat, they say, and indeed it 
looks ugly and wicked. In places it is 60 feet deep, and 
again you can wade it. It has traps set for you. The 
Greenbrier has no trap. If it tipped you out it wouldn't 
liurt you, and would apologize for wetting you. It meets 
the roily flood of the New, and refuses to mingle with it 
for half_ a mile, still showing clean and clear far down 
the conjoint waterway. Probably George Washington 
intended this river as part of his trans-Appalachian Canal, 
but it has not yet been harnessed, and may it never be. 
Will not some one try this stream and tell about it ? 
Illinois State Game Reserve Associatioa. 
A game protective and propagative societj'- has been 
formed, with State Game Commissioner Harry W. Love- 
day as its President, and wjth Sangamon county as the 
immediate field of operations. The Secretary is H. C. 
Garvey, of Buffalo, 111., and the Treasurer, Hon. Jas. R. 
B. Van Cleave, of Springfield. The Directors number 
among their lists Governor Tanner, Judge Burke, of 
Chicago; Mr. G. C. Edwards, of Springfield; Messrs. 
Loveday, Garvey and Van Cleave. The membership in 
rank and file is composed of the farmers of Sangamon 
county, who have agreed to take the Mongolian pheasants, 
the quail and squirrels which will be distributed by the 
Association, and protect them from shooters. The grounds 
controlled amount to 21,000 acres, and more farmers are 
coming in all the time. The society has now in its 
hatchery at Buffalo fourteen Mongolian pheasants, whose 
eggs will be distributed free to the farmers. There will 
also be put down 200 pairs of quail and about 200 pairs of 
squirrels. These distributions of game are to be made 
at the charge of the new society, which has no funds 
except those raised by the first assessment of $25 per 
member. 
The farmers of Sangamon county have agreed to pro- 
fit the pt-airie chickens already native there, for a term 
of three years. The land' owners make a contract in the 
form of a lease, the _ consideration reading for $1 in 
each case, this conveying the privilege of raising game 
and of shooting same by those bearing permits of the 
society, and by no one else, the farmer being warden 
to prevent shooting by any one else. It may be seen that 
this is exactly the method employed by Mr. W. I. Spears 
in his Mississippi preserve, mention of which was made 
in these columns last winter. It is the intention to 
shoot no prairie chickens or squirrels for three years, 
though members may shoot some quail, as the stock of 
that bird is already good. Sangamon county was once 
one of the greatest game regions of this or any other 
Western State. 
This Association is confessedly an experiment and an 
object lesson. The attempt to establish a State game 
preserve failed. Now, if this preserve can be shown to be 
a success, it may be possible to refer to it in a later effort 
to interest our apathetic legislators in practical game pro- 
tection. Whether it will ever get up so far as that or not. 
is not essential. Every one of these private preserves is a 
good thing. It saves some game, it adds some game, and 
it advertises to the igorant and careless public the value 
of the game. There is everv reason to hope a very sub- 
stantial success for this initial movement in Illinois, and 
it is promised by the projectors that, should it prove de- 
.sirable and successful in Sangamon coimtj'-, the same 
movement will be carried over into ofter cpwnties, and 
FOREST AND - STREAM, 
the work made as nearly as may be a State work. That 
this shall be the event of the action of these public spirited 
men is much to be hoped, and perhaps after all we may 
yet report progress from benighted Illinois, the land of 
spring shooting and unlimited bags of game. There 
is an old saying about the man from Missouri, who said : 
"It may be so, but you've got to show me." The actual 
Illinois shooter has been much like the fabled Missourian. 
Perhaps this is the best way to show him. 
Yet Anotfan Pfaesaat Presctve. 
Speaking of this public or semi-public work of game 
propagation, it gives much pleasure to mention another 
movement in the same direction, this time by a private 
individual, one of the many who are in these days going 
in for the rearing of the foreign pheasants. The word 
comes from Mr. M. B. Hifner, who is superintendent of 
the public schools at Mortonsville, Ky, Mr. Hifner 
writes : 
"I have been a reader of the Forest and Stream for 
many years, and am much interested in your weekly 
contributions. I want to try pheasant rearing, and write 
you to know if you will kindly give me the address of 
parties having the golden pheasants. I do not find them 
advertised in any of my papers." 
I wish some one would come to Mr. Hifner's help. The 
best I can do is to refer, him to Mr, Howard F. Bosworth, 
of Milwaukee, Wis., who has done more in rearing 
pheasants than any one I know in the West. I feel quite 
sure Mr. Bosworth can set the inquirer right and will 
be glad to be of any assistance he can. The lovely re- 
gion around Mortonsville should carry these birds hand- 
somely. 
Cot. Cooped ia 'W^asbington. 
I came through Washington last Tuesday night, and as 
I did so I said to myselt that it was lo to 1 that Col. 
Cooper, of Chicago, was right there at that time, and that 
it would be a good thing to stop over and look him up. 
This I wish might have been done, for the fact proves 
that the . tclepauiic message of the doughty Colonel's 
magnetic personality was correctly understood. He was 
there all the time; and he was splitting wood. 
This morning's dispatches form Washington state that 
Col. Cooper, leader of the movement for tha Minnesota- 
National Park, and Mrs. Lydia P. Williams, President of 
the Minnesota Federation of Women's Clubs, appeared 
before the House Committee on Indian Affairs yesterday. 
They spoke to a resolution introduced by Mr. Tawney, of 
Minnesota, in the House jrjesterday, which resolution pro- 
vides for a special commission of inquiry, twelve mem- 
bers from the HoUse and Senate, to go up into Minnesota 
and look into this question, and to report not later than 
next January. The resolution carries an appropriation for 
$10,000 to cover expenses of this trip. 
It may be imagined what Col. Cooper and Mrs.*Williams 
would say to that committee. Weary of oratory that 
committee may be, biit they could not evade a direct and 
straightforward enthusiasm like this that they saw. Col. 
Cooper is more than a remarkable man. One does not 
like to say it of him openly, for personal reasons, yet it is 
true that his work in this park movement has been that 
of a man of far more than the average brain and wdl 
power. We laugh at such men sometimes, but we come to 
applaud them when they succeed. Sometimes we honor 
them, and then again sometimes we forget them. We 
ought to remember Cok John S. Cooper, of Chicago, 
whether he wins or loses in this fight. We ought to re- 
member with him Mr. Tawney, of Winona, .the member 
who introduced this measure that means so much for his 
Stsite, the man who has thus kept his promise made on the 
trip last fall — as will all the other Congressmen who were 
of that party. We ought to remember, win or lose, the 
lady who represents more than 5,000 women of Minne- 
sota in this demand for a public park worthy of that 
name, a proposition possible now, but soon to be im- 
possible forever. 
Col. Cooper promised to bring this thing before Con- 
gress. He has made good his promise. He has done 
enough now to entitle him to the words "Well done." Yet 
those do not know him who think this is more than the 
beginning. Granted his health, and he will be at the side 
of that committee next fall. There will be no split train, 
no divided party, no traitors in the camp. The Commis- 
sioners will see that country this time, and see it in all its 
loveliness, in also all its desolution. They may see this 
picture, and may see that, the one which the lumbermen 
have made. They may see the great and beneficent work 
of the Government dams, which this people have paid for 
and given to the lumbermen to use. "They shall see God's 
big trees, God's bright waters, God's blue sky. Then, if 
they want to keep the people of America out of there, and 
let the lumbermen in, and rob and starve the Indians, who 
originally found and have always loved this upper Mis- 
sissippi River region — if they want to do that, let them 
go home and admit to their own wives and families that 
they are politicians, and not statesmen. 
This would be the greatest nation on earth if we had 
honest politics. It is the greatest anyhow. We shall have 
honest politics, it is almost sure, in this Commission, which 
faith in Col. Cooper and his colleague from the State of 
Minnesota bids us accept as a foregone conclusion. They 
never can escape the eloqueace of this blue-eyed man who 
loves to go a-fishing, and loves to see others go a-fishing. 
Tawne^r, Cooper, Mrs. Williams ; set those names down 
as the armor bearers of what is going to be a success. 
Let Col. Cooper's law clients wait. Let everything 
wait. This park is the thing. Give Col. Cooper this 
park, and he will rest content, and have no higher ambi- 
tion. Which of us had done more in life? 
Now, the Forest and Stream is read by many thou- 
sands of good people all over these United States. Every 
one of these people has a representative in Congress. It 
costs two cents to write to him. Every one of these 
readers who has read the Pqrest and Stream understands 
this subject well enough to tell his Congressman what 
he thinks is . right about it. Your Congressman is Con- 
sressman not by the grace of God, but by the grace of you. 
Don't be afraid of him^ — he's a heap more afraid of you. 
Write and tell him what you think is right. You know 
more about it than he does. Imitate Col. Cooper. Split 
a little wood. Let us have the park. 
The^Teat m ike Mwah. 
As showing in some degree the interest t^ken in duck 
shooting, even in the sinful season of the spring, witness 
two tents which have been on the marsh at Water Valley 
for a month or so this spring. In one of these tents 
there were at one time thirty-nine shooters. In the other 
there were for some time twent;y-one shooters and two 
negro cooks, this latter party going on the marsh before 
the middle of March, and therefore being obliged to take 
the cold snap of that season, which they weathered 
patiently, waiting for the flight. 
Mr. Paul Tarbel's article on the Kankakee duck shoot- 
ing is interesting and lifelike, but I am afraid that not 
all of our tenters could claim so high an average as he 
meets in his shooting on the Nickel Plate grounds (just 
below the old Maksawba grounds). Mr. F. R. Bissell, of 
this city, who goes to Water Valley, went three times and 
didn't get a duck, which is pretty tough luck. 
Discharged. 
Messrs. H. R. Wills, of Alton, and C. C. Jones, of 
Sandwich, 111., who called twice last week and found me 
out, leave cards stating that that I may "Consider my- 
self discharged." They apparently overlooked the fact 
that I had already gone off to New York. 
End of Duck Season. 
Our duck season for Illinois closes April 15, which is 
Sunday next. Then we have five days in which to dis- 
pose of the lean and fishy product of the spring shooting, 
which has acumulated in the markets. 
Tty It the Ott«» Way. 
Governor Roosevelt has signed the bill which pro- 
hibits shipment of game outside the State of New York. 
If he wiU sign one prohibiting the shipment of game 
into the State of New York, the West will elect him 
President of the United States. We may do it anyhow 
some day, .but we would prefer this bill first. 
The Jacksnipe Ate Up. 
April 14. — The jacksnipe are up. Last Monday Oswald 
Von Lengerke killed fifteen jacks at Koutts, Ind. He 
goes again to-day. This, added to the Haskell bag of last 
week, shows that these birds are pushing just as far north 
as they can. The snow of three days ago has now nearly 
disappeared, and it is not likely it drove the birds down. 
Very likely one might now shoot jacksnipe on the Kan- 
kakee region on ground still showing snow. The weather 
is now warm, and if it holds so this coming week will 
show the birds in good numbers. 
A Good Sheep Head. 
To-day Walter Dupee, of this city, told me that one of . 
the rams he killed in Lower California has horns that' 
measure 17 inches around the base. This is a very ex- 
traordinary head, much beyond the average. It must, 
however, still take a back seat when compared to the 
premier head which poor Billy Jackson, of the Blackfoot 
country, gave me some years ago. Mr. Dupee is still more 
than an inch shy. This grand head of mine, or of Billy 
Jackson's (God bless him; he died last winter), will beat 
them all from now "to the finish of tliing^s, in all like- 
lihood, ii 
Where io Wtite About Jacksctpe. 
Several parties want snipe addresses, and names of men 
on the grounds. I would recommend such inquirers to 
address Geo. Glissman, at Koutts, Ind. 
Mr. Neal Brown, of Wausau, Wis., writes me from his 
home, after his safe return from Cuba, where he spent the 
winter : 
"I passed hurriedly through Chicago about a fortnight 
.since on my road from Cuba. We want to see you again 
this summer, and I want to arrange some time to take you 
trout fishing where there really are trout — not the mere 
suspicion or shadow of trout, but the real, genuine thing. 
I believe it is the understanding you are to come, and so 
there is no chance for excuses or regrets or anything of 
that sort." 
I have told Mr. Brown that, though beguiled many 
a time and oft by this Lorelei fish, I was always ready - 
to be fooled again. If I ever find myself up in his neck 
of woods, we will go out and try the stream that Mr. 
Brown has hid out. We won't get any trout; but we will 
come back and tell just how it happened that we didn't. 
As I remarked to him about trout fishing, a fellow knows 
he isn't going to catch any trout, but he thinks he will. 
All of which seems ungenerous in view of so kind an 
invitation. Now, do you suppose such a thing might 
happen as that Mr. Brown really has found a stream 
with trout in it, somewhere ? If so, it were well to be on 
the safe side, and not take any chances by staying home. 
On the whole, one's feeling is that he ought to go. It's 
just once more! And this time we'll surely get them! 
E. Houqa. 
300 BoYCB Building, Chicago, 111. 
North Carolina Snipe* 
Oregon Inlet, N. C, April 10. — Editor Forest and. 
Stream: While hunting yellowleg snipe along the coast 
opposite the Albermarle and Pamlico sounds last week,_ I . 
saw more English snipe than I have seen at one time in 
many years. There were frequently fifty in the air at 
once. I shot twenty-three — all I could use — and stopped. 
They were in excellent condition, and were very large 
birds. The bay snipe are not here in abundance, the 
weather being too cold (temperature to-day, 36) , but it is 
a capital place for them from, the middle of April to the . 
first of June, and again in August and September. 1 
spent Sunday with Capt. Edward Gould, formerly from 
Cape Cod. He has erected a nice little hotel at Manteo, on 
Roanoke Island, and it is beautifully kept. Any readers . 
of dear old Forest and Stream who are fond of English 
snipe or shore bird shooting could not find a more de- 
lightful place, nor do I think better shooting anywhere. 
•There are some black brant left. I saw a beauty 
caught in a shad net last Friday. 
Capt. Joe Hayman reported the first school of large 
bluefish last Thursday, and some large gray trout (weak- 
fish) were caught here Saturday. This is perhaps one 
of the best places in America for bluefish and weakfisb 
fishing with hand line or rod and reel. More ANoiir. 
