Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1901, bv Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Trrms, $i A Year. 10 Crs. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2, f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1901. 
I.- 
VOL. LVI.— No. 1. 
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 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 
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 iii. 
An Epoch Making Editorial 
A Platform Plank.— r/i^ sale -of game should be for- 
bidden at all seasons. — Forest and Stream, Feb. 3, 
1894. 
A Boston correspondent writes : "Estimated by the im- 
portance of the proposition, the attention it received and 
the progress already made toward its attainment, resulting 
from the attention attracted to it and the effort stimulated 
by it, we may fairly call the Forest and Stream's Plat- 
form Plank, as announced in your issue of Feb. 3, 1894, 
an epoch making editorial. Certainly it is the most last- 
ingly influential single article that has ever appeared in 
sporting journalism in this country." 
The article to which reference is made was the original 
publication of the Forest and Stream''s Platform Plank, 
that "The sale of game should be forbidden at all seasons." 
In this first number of the new century, at the moment 
when we are all reviewing the past and laying plans for 
the future, reckoning up the achievements of past efforts 
and preparing for renewed endeavor, we reprint the Plank 
as a renewed declaration of principle. We print it as it was 
originally printed in 1894. The six years that have elapsed 
since then have brought no reason for modifying the views 
there expressed. Rather have they emphasized the neces- 
sity of adopting in general practice the system advocated. 
Now at the close of the century the game supply in re- 
spect to every important species is much less than it was 
in 1894, when the editorial was penned. There is to-day, 
even more than there was then, an urgent necessity of 
cutting off the destruction of our game for commercial 
purposes. The steady and progressive diminishing of the 
stock gives point to^very argument then advanced for 
the abolition of the game market. The Plank proposed in 
1894 ma.y well be made the Plank in 1901. 
We said in 1894 that the principle of the absolute 
prohibition of the sale of game might be adopted as a 
platform after the manner of the platform of a political 
party, which, while not always possible of immediate 
achievement, was something to aspire to, labor for and 
strive for, with confidence in the ultimate attainment 
of it. 
The principle found much more immediate and much 
wider acceptance than the Forest and Stream had antici- 
pated or dared to hope for. Individuals, clubs and asso- 
ciations indorsed it and urged its adoption; and legis- 
latures in different parts of the country approved it and 
acted upon it, incorporating it into the game laws. The 
results already achieved are important and wide reaching. 
State after State has adopted the principle of the Plank, in 
some instances without reservation, in others in part only ; 
but the general tendency of . game protective legislation of 
the day is in the direction- of the absolute prohibition of 
the sale of game; The laws forbidding the export of game 
and its shipment to market are in line with the Plank. 
The killing of certain species of game for sale is now 
prohibited in Alabama, California, Indiana, the Indian 
Territory, Iowa, Qhip, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, 
and Wyoming. 
The sale of game is prohibited at all times, with respect 
to certain specified species, in Alabama, Arizona, Cali- 
fornia, Cpnnecticqt, Pel^w^re, Florida, Idaho. lUiiJojs, 
Indiana. Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, 
New Mexico, Ohio,. Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, 
South Carolina, South Dakota. Texas, Washington and 
Wyoming. 
Prohibition' of the export of game applying to certain 
species and having the effect of cutting off the market 
supply holds in the following States, all such laws having 
been enacted in the period subsequent to the Forest and 
Stream's publication in 1894 of its Platfonn Plank : Ala- 
bama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, 
Idaho, Illinois, Indian Territory, Kansas, Maryland (coun- 
ties), Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hamp- 
shire. New Jersey. New Mexico, New York, North 
Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode 
Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, 
Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin 
and Wyoming. Sirhilar laws antedating 1894 prevail in 
Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa and 
North Carolina. 
From this review it will be seen that either in the direct 
prohibition of the sale of game, or in the limitation of 
export, the principle enunciated by us in 1894 is now at 
the beginning of the new century practically in universal 
application so far as the existence of statutes is concerned. 
There yet remains much to be done in the way of making 
these laws effective by insuring their enforcement. 
In view of the history of the past six years, it may well 
be said, as our Boston correspondent has written, that the 
Forest and Stream's editorial of Feb. 3, 1894, was "epoch 
making." 
QUAIL SHOOTING IN MISSISSIPPI. 
The excellent field scene which we present to our 
readers this week in a supplement to Forest and Stream 
is a copy of a painting which was composed and executed 
with special reference to the pleasure and profit of our 
'readers. It is beautiful in itself, therefore it is pleasur- 
able. It portrays the subject with fidelity, therefore it is 
instructive and profitable. By referring to it one will 
readily perceive that it is a work of rare merit in every 
particular. It is from the masterly brush of Mr. Edmund 
H. Osthaus, whose practical knowledge, skill and fame as 
a sportsman are second only to his like properties as an 
artist. 
Its title, "Quail Shooting in Mississippi," is a theme of 
interest to all sportsmen, whether they have, with dog and 
gun, roamed over the broad, picturesque plantations in 
quest of the elusive "partridge," as the quail is termed in 
that State, or whether they have learned of its bird wealth 
and hospitality as a matter of hearsay only. For is it 
not a land where field trials have flourished these many 
years since their inception; where the traditions of the 
competition, of conqueror and conquered, most abound; 
where in field work the dogs gallop merrily to and 
fro in front of the shooters as they ride, comfortably 
seated on the backs of horses or mules, a pleasing contrast 
to the more laborious and slower Northern manner of 
hunting afoot; where an open hand and open door ever 
greet the worthy stranger whichever point of the com- 
pass he deigns to face, and where the birds are so plentiful 
that the number of them taken is measured only by the 
pleasure or skill of the shooter? To him who has shot in 
Mississippi, it is a land of pleasant reminiscence as to 
the past, and a factor in the outing plans of the future; 
to other sportsmen its shooting advantages cause a long- 
ing to journey thitherward when their ships come in or 
when the cares of business shall oermit. 
The picture contains all that appeals to the fancy of the 
sportsman, whether it be associate or reminiscent. Does 
he delight in nature? The plantation fields stretch far 
away in the distance, marked at their boundaries by con- 
glomerations of rails, weeds and brush, bearing corn, 
wheat, stubble, sorghum, sedge, weeds, grass, with 
stretches of woodland intervening here and there, all 
together forming an ideal habitat and food store for the 
game birds. 
Does he delight in the most complete equipments? The 
picture portrays them. The dogs, types of^the finest bred 
pdinters and setters, are doing their resoective parts iq 
finished field form, while the costumes and guns of the 
shooters are of the most approved patterns. The method 
displayed by the latter in holding their guns with a view 
to the safety of each other and of the dogs, their complete 
observance of fairness in joint action, combined with a 
steady alertness for instantaneous shooting on the rise of 
the birds, are worthy of much more than passing notice. 
The wire fence, relatively insignificant as a part of the 
picture, portends much of importance to the sportsman. 
It, on the one hand, is the bane of the shooter, since it is 
an obstruction to his purposes and his pleasure, besides 
being a menace to the life or limb of his dogs ; on the other 
hand, it is an index of greater advance in agriculture and 
prosperity, being a connecting link between the methods 
of the old era and the new. It marks the evolution from 
purelj' slipshod methods to the more thorough. To the 
sportsman in his capaci.y as a citizen, the change brings 
much over which to rejoice; in his private capacity it 
brings something regrettable, inasmuch as the best shoot- 
ing, abundance of birds and good cover mainly considered, 
is a correlation of the poorest farming. 
The negro, with his slipshod methods of agriculture, is 
the ideal farmer of the sportsman. His ideas and methods 
are astonishingly primijve. He is rarely other than a 
tenant. The idea of making any improvements of a 
permanent nature on land which he does not own and 
which he never expects to own, or even which he does 
own, never enters his head. As a consequence, the widely 
set fences of his leasehold are always in a more or less 
tumble-down condition, with brush growing freely along 
them and in numerous other neglected or unused nooks 
and corners, while fallow fields are left to grow weeds or 
whatever other growth may spring up on them. Also, his 
methods are slow and dilatory. The pleasant season is 
long, therefore he gathers his crops late; the necessities 
of life are not importunate in his land of abundance, there- 
fore he gathers his crops carelessly. The delay of days 
and weeks and the grain ungathered add generously to 
the food supply of the game birds, after the methods 
which obtained in the older era. 
The wire fence ! It marks a new era in agricultural in- 
terests in the South, and incidentally it marks a change 
in the life of the game birds and restricts the free roam- 
ing of the sportsman. 
It takes up much less ground than did the old-fashioned 
worm fence. Unlike the latter, it affords no protection to 
the game birds. In many places in Mississippi and other 
Southern States where a few years ago the shooter could 
ride freely to and fro in any direction over plantations 
containing thousands of acres, the wire fence has come 
into greater and greater use with each passing year. 
Mammoth plantations then containing a few great fields 
loosely fenced are now plantations divided into many 
smaller fields firmly wire fenced. 
Thus the wire fence in the picture marks a transitional 
stage. It affords no shelter for the birds as do the fences 
in the background. When the wooden fences rot, they 
are removed, the brush is cut away and the wire fence 
supplants them. Then the shelter of the birds is reduced 
accordingly, and the negro boy is used then mostly to 
take the horses back through gates and barways to in- 
tercept the shooter at some place ahead where he best can 
do so. And yet, despite wire fences and progress, there 
is much left of good sport on the typical Southern 
plantation so deftly portrayed in our supplement. 
In Brooklyn last week Judge Gaynor reversed on the re- 
argument of the case a decision imposing a penalty on a 
New York dealer for having brook trout in possession in 
the close season. The fish had been brought into the State 
from Massachusetts, and Judge Gaynor was governed by 
the recent decision of the Court of Appeals, which held 
that the law forbidding possession in close season does not 
apply to fish not taken in the State. As we pointed out 
the other day, if this Court of Appeals ruling shall pre- 
vail, the effect will be practically to open the market to 
both fish and game brought in from other States. But 
as the decision arrived at the other day by the Court of 
Appeals was a complete reversal dt the Phelps-Racey 
case which has for years been an unchallenged precedent, 
there is reason to believe that this new ruling in tiirn may 
be reversed, and we shall see the principle enunciated in 
the Phelps-Racey case once more controlling^. 
An illustrated supplement, "Quail Shooting In Miuis^ 
sippi" accontpsnies thi^ itu»tber, " ^1 
