Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
COPVRIGHT, 1900, BY FoRBST[AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 
Six Months, $2. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1900. 
1 VOL. LV.— No. 36. 
1 No. 846 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 be re- 
garded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of current topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
con'espondents. 
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particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
It is the province of the Forest and Stream, by the 
sketches of personal experience in the field and on the 
waters, to bring back to the lively recollection of him who 
reads its columns the good times with rod and gun he has 
himself enjoyed. In the happy fortune or the misadven- 
ture here recorded we see reflected the bright days and 
the dark days of our own outings ; and it is this picturing 
anew of our own experiences that makes up so much of 
the charm of the literature of the field. 
For the year that is to come these pages will give from 
■week to week the experience of sportsmen written by 
sportsmen for sportsmen. The Forest and Stoeam wishes 
its friends a Happy New Year ; and it will do its share in 
weekl}'- number after number to make the year a happy 
one. 
THE CHANGE OF A CENTURY. 
The closing century has been marvelous in its dis- 
"--iwries. in its advance in civilization and in all that 
makes the living of life easier to civilized man. It has 
been an age in which man has begun to understand certain 
of the forces of nature, to tame them to his own uses and 
to force them to work for him, as he ropes, saddles and 
breaks to ride the wild horse of the prairie. With the 
more easy life which has come from the chaining of these 
forces and their adaptation to man's uses has come also 
a vast increase in the civilized population of the globe, and 
a corresponding decrease in its natural and uncivilized 
population. 
Nowhere has this change been more marked than in the 
territory of the United States. A century ago its popula- 
tion numbered 5,308,000. Its inhabitants were gathered 
in a little fringe of settlements along the eastern coast, 
and the first hardy adventurers had but a short time be- 
fore they Isegan to push their way into the interior. Then 
the furthest limits of the west were the banks of the Mis- 
sissippi River. Be3rond this was literally an unknown 
world. No one could tell what of man or of beast 
might dwell there. Such animals as the antelope, the 
mountain sheep, the white goat, the grizzly bear and a 
host of smaller species had not then been described. 
Except upon the borders of the settlements, game and 
fish were as numerous as ever. Their only enemies were 
men and the savage quadrupeds and birds which ate 
them, and these enemies were not sufficiently numerous 
to keep down the increase of the creatures on which 
they fed. 
To-day the population of the United States is nearly 
76,000,000. Its territory extends from ocean to ocean, and 
not merely its territory but its people as well. The in- 
dustries of farming and stock raising and lumbering and 
mining have sent men far and wide over the land, push- 
ing out over plain and valley, threading the densest forests, 
pciietrating the most remote nooks in the nrountains, climb- 
ing the loftiest peaks. Each man who has done this work, 
whether an old-time trapper, or a prospector, or a modern 
timber cruiser, has done his part toward destroj-ing na- 
ture and developing art in the place he visited. In some 
way his coming has meant a change — direct or indirect — 
to some of the wild creatures which dwelt in the place to 
which he came. He killed the game, or caught the fish, or 
burned the prairie or the forest, or disturbed and troubled 
some creature, which learned then that there was in the 
world a new enemy to be feared — an enem.y that it had not 
known before. 
One hundred years ago there was great game in abun- 
dance in the many States that are now densely popu- 
lated, and small game was abundant everywhere. The 
wild turkey rustled in Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
the prairie chicken hooted ovev the sandy flats of Long 
Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Hordes 
of migrating wild fowl and of wild pigeons passed over. 
the land in such numbers as to darken the sun, and fed 
everywhere. 
In early days deer skins were the currency of many of 
the settlements, but they were killed by Indians who used 
the animals' flesh and by them were brought in to trade. 
The early settlers were too hard at work wresting sub- 
sistence from the stubborn soil to waste time and am- 
munition on game unless they needed it to fill their chil- 
dren's mouths. But as time passed and population in- 
creased, skins still had a value, and people were found 
willing to hunt game for the small pay that there was in 
selling deer skins. This process of turning the product 
of the wild creatures into money has gone on constantly, 
and at a constantly increasing rate, and the results are 
what we see to-day. 
It is a familiar story that in primitive times the buffalo 
occupied one-third of the North American continent. 
On the Atlantic coast it almost reached the sea; the 
northern limit of its range was the Great Slave Lake and 
the southern northern Mexico. In the last decade of the 
eighteenth century buffalo were killed in Ohio and Vir- 
ginia, but by 1810 they had been exterminated in Ohio, 
Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, where once they had been 
most abundant, and were then found only on the western 
side of the Mississippi River. By the year 1870 the Mis- 
souri River was the eastern boundary of the species,' and 
thirteen years later it had been practically exterminated. 
There are now probably two or three times as many 
buffalo in captivity in zoological gardens, private parks 
and menageries, as there are wild ones. 
The moose, solitary in its habits, living in the forest, has 
not shared the fate of the buffalo. It is true that it has 
been exterminated in New York, Vermont and New 
Hampshire, but it still exists in Maine and Canada and in 
some portions of the northern Rocky Mountains. In 
Maine, protected by law, it has of late years greatly in- 
creased and has almost become partially domesticated, so 
that during a portion of a year it manifests little fear of 
man. 
Forest and Stream has printed from time to time quo- 
tations from the writings of the early Jesuit Fathers, 
which tell of the great herds of elk seen all over the 
eastern country in the eighteenth century. Yet before the 
nineteenth was fifty years old, all these animals had been 
destroyed, and the last survivor of them in the East was 
killed in Pennsylvania in 1853. In the forest of Michigan 
they lingered much longer, probably until 1870, and in- 
deed there are vague reports that elk still exist on the 
borders of Minnesota and Dakota. Between 1870 and 1875 
there were great numbers of elk on the prairies of Dakota, 
Montana and Nebraska, but ten years more sufficed to 
wipe them out there, and now instead of the elk of the 
prairie with widely branching antlers that we used to 
know, we have only the elk of the timber, whose horns 
have much less lateral spread. 
The same story may be told of most of our game ani- 
mals. The man of to-day has pushed his resistless way 
everywhere, and where the civilized man comes there is 
no room for uncivilized creatures, whether they be men or 
beasts. We may try to preserve the game as much as we 
please ; we may endeavor to make gradual the process of 
its extermination; but it is useless for us to try to fight 
against the laws of nature. They are immutable. The 
daj' is coming — nay, it is almost here — when those who 
wish to see big game must look for it inside of protected 
parks and preserves. The United States has the oppor- 
tunity to establish a number of such game preserves. 
These are to be found in the great area of territory so 
wisely set aside as forest reserves at various times in 
the past by Presidential proclamation. Each one of these 
great areas of forest and mountain and plain should be 
considered not onlj' with relation to the timber growing 
or to be grown within its borders, but also with relation 
to the game which, either existing or to be introduced, 
might harbor within its limits. Wisely and intelligently 
conserved, these forest presers-^es might ser\^e also as game 
preserves, not to be exhausted by another century of 
civilization and of increased population. 
With the changed game conditions has come a not less 
notable revolution of public sentiment regarding the game 
as a resource to be cared for and preserved. We have in 
large measure lost our abundance of game, but we have 
gained an appreciation of what remains ; and in view of 
this awakening and growth of healthy sentiment the out- 
look for the new century is not altogether one of dis- 
couragement. We shall take better care of our game in 
the future than in the past. There is reason to believe 
that the period of indifference has passed by, and that 
the sportsman of the twentieth century will have advan- 
tage, in a growing degrees as the century shall progress, 
of a wiser system of ■game preservation. 
The North American Fish and Game Protective Asso- 
ciation, whose recent meeting is reported in our game col- 
umns, is engaged in an effort which is both sensible and 
practicable. Its chief purpose is to harmonize the laws of 
a group of contiguous Provinces and States. The terri- 
tory covered is a region which by reason of conditions of 
latitude and longitude should have throughout the entire 
extent practically uniform seasons and certainly uniform 
regulations as to ways of taking game and limitations of 
number. The Association is made up of members many of 
whom by reason of their official positions and known in- 
formation in the especial fields of fish and game protection 
may reasonably be expected to have influence with the 
several legislative bodies which will be looked to for the 
enactment of these uniform statutes. We anticipate sub- 
stantial results from the movement. 
One subject upon which the Association declared itself 
in no uncertain terms is that of the abolition of spring 
shooting. Of the expediency of this because of its urgent 
necessity there can be no two opinions. To shoot the 
birds when on their way from the South to their Northern 
breeding grounds is, from the standpoint of economy, fool-: 
ish in the extreme. The only obstacle that stands in the 
way of doing away with spring shooting now is the selfish- 
ness of individuals and localities whose immediate in- 
terests are opposed to the real and permanent interest of 
the country at large. But even such opposition cannot 
long be effectual. For one thing, as in one section after 
another spring shooting has been abolished, and demon- 
stration has been made possible of the fact that in these 
regions the birds, if unmolested in the spring, will nest 
and will be found in greater supply in the fall, those 
who have opposed most strenuously the anti-spring shoot- 
ing system have come to see the wisdom and advantage of 
it. and ma}'- now be counted as supporters instead of op- 
ponents. To the abolition of spring shooting, not only iij 
the territories covered by the North American Associa- 
tion, but in all other States and Provinces as well, we 
shall come, and come very soon. 
There was held in Philadelphia the other day a con- 
ference of allied interests, comprising the Associated 
Health Boards and Sanitarians, the Forestry Association, 
the Pennsylvania Fish Protective Association, the State 
Sportsmen's Association and the Game Commission, 
Among the several measures discussed for improving the 
game and fish protective system, the most important was a- 
proposed amendment to repeal the clause of the act of 
1895, creating the Game Commission, which forbids re- 
muneration or the paying of expenses to any member of 
the Commission. It certainly is preposterous, in this day, 
for a great and wealthy commonAvealth like Pennsylvania 
to expect the members of a game commission to give 
their services without reward, or to accomplish anything 
of law enforcement without funds. The game and fish of 
Pennsjdvania are important and valuable public resources, 
Their conservatiop is a subject of public concern. And if 
they are worth caring for, as unquestionably they are, the 
care of them is worth paying for out of the public treasury. 
Pennsylvania should take its place with other States which 
have paid game warden systems. 
Another recommendation adopted by the conference 
calls for a license for non-resident gunners before they 
shall be privileged to shoot game. This is another straw 
which shows the growing tendency to restrict the priviliges 
of non-residents. The license plan is talked of in Maine 
again this winter, and despite the opposition which the 
proposition will certainly provoke, it is probable that the 
system will be adopted. From non-resident license to 
the exaction of a fee from residents is but a step. We 
began the century with the American system — game and 
shooting free to every one. We are ending it with a 
substantial progress in the direction of the European 
system of shooting, closely hedged about with restrictions* 
