March 2, ipot.} 
FOREST AND « STREAM; 
168 
nual rent) for many generations. The house is a story 
and a half cottage, grass sodded and painted with tar. 
At the "but" end, as it would be called in Scotland, are 
the living rooms, an outer kitchen with earth floor, where 
the cooking is done and where cats, dogs and chickens 
wander in and out ; ihen a general family room, where 
they sit, eat and spin; small bedrooms open out of this 
and others are m the loft above. In the "ben" end is a 
guest sitting room, rarely used, and a tiny guest lord room. 
The floor' is bare, with unpainted boards, there is a sofa, 
table, cupboard, chairs, a queer old stove bearing the da.e 
1724 and decorated in raised iron work with crowns, gar- 
lands, warriors and portraits of Frederick II. and his 
Queen. This is built into the wall, and the fuel is put in 
by a door out in the entry. There are many photographs 
of family and friends, a lithograph of Martin Luther and 
two from Rembrandt's e.chings, bright flowers in the win- 
dows and Nottingham curtains. In the bedroom is a nar- 
row, short box bed, with feathers to He upon and a large 
feather puiif above. 
In these two rooms a foreign guest is expected to live. 
It is a mark of especial friendliness if he is invited to the 
'but." Here kind Fru Hans wai.s upon the guest, serv- 
ing sweet soup for dinner, probably "fricadella" of fresh 
pounded codfish and whipped cream and sago. One must 
not expect to fare so well in all Faroe hamlets. The good 
living here is due to a combination of generous hospitality 
and a knowledge of Danish cookery, acquired from sev- 
eral wives of Danish pastors. 
A Faroe village is not a model of hygiene. There is a 
superfluity of cods' heads, whales' vertebras and birds' 
wings; there are piles of manure and garbage, and pools 
of stagnant water close to the houses, and unpleasant strips 
of last 3^ear's whale meat hangmg from the eaves. One is 
glad to hurry through, breathing as little as possible, to 
the sweet grass and sea-scented air beyond. But here 
Hans Kristoffer's guest room looks out on the prettiest 
little garden in the Faroes, and here he fights frosts in 
summer and gales at all times of -the year. He has forti- 
fied his garden as best he may with earth dikes and 
doiijDle rows of currant bushes, and within these precincts 
grow big pr'mroses, daffodils, iris, sweetbrier, larkspurs, 
pinks, sweet Williams, phlox, lupine and big poppies. It 
is a triumph of a little garden for the same latitude as 
Julianhaab, in Greenland, hut -with what pains and dis- 
appointments has it been achieved I Indeed. Herr Hans 
reminded me of his own little trees, which he displaj'ed 
with gentle pride; small, brown and brave, with budding 
hopes cut down each winter by the cruel blasts, and sprout- 
ing up again in the spring. There was a liaby spruce, 
some elms, poplars, maples, a mountain ash and some 
slips of hawthorn, enough to make quite a rustle in the 
sea breeze. But one feels (though one is not unkind 
enough to say so) that they will never be any bigger — any 
taller — though with succeeding years they may learn to 
bow to the storms and curve low their boughs within the 
shelter of the dike, 
Hans Kristoffer asks me many questions in a wistful 
way about the big trees in America — "the largest in the 
world" — and drinks in eagerly what I tell him of the red- 
woods of California, and the yellow spruce of southern 
Alaska. "And that is far north, too — Alaska," he says; 
"but no, they would never grow like that here — not if 
they lived a thousand years!" 
Aside from the few small trees which have been planted 
in gardens, there is not one in all the Faroes ; not even a 
bush breaks the outline of the h^lls. The climate must 
have changed since the exiled Vikings first came to the 
Faroes in the tenth century, for many fragments of birch 
and juniper, of good size, are found in peat bogs. The 
great changes of temperature and the fierce gales, and not 
the severity of the cold in winter, destroy the trees. For- 
tunately the supply of peat is abundant and good, and the 
cutting and drying of it is the all-important work of the 
early summer months. 
A Faroe peasant nutst of necessity be an all-round 
man — a farmer in a small way, a peat w^orker, fisherman, 
sailor, oarsman, mountain climber, a shepherd occasion- 
ally, a carpenter and odd jobber. In all these ways com- 
bined he ekes out a simple living, sometimes doing little 
for days at a time, then working steadily all day and 
far into the night, the weather determining his activity. 
The uncertainty of his work and his isolation from the 
outside world has made the Faroe man the least punctual 
of mortals, and this irait the foreign traveler finds at 
times most trying. But no one can be quicker, braver, 
more resolute than he in time of danger. Think what 
it means to be a "flink fjeld-mand" — a clever cliflF man, 
going down w'th the line after sea fowl, suspended in 
mid-air, crawling along ledges hundreds of feet above 
the sea, ledges that crumble, with rooks above that fall. 
T heard here of a father and son who went to the northern 
cliffs of Vaagoe for guillemots' eggs. They descended 
to a narrow ledge just wide enough for a man to .stand, 
except in one place, where it jutted out, forming a shelf 
about five feet wide. As the men gathered eggs they 
piled them up here, until a large quantity had been col- 
lected. Just then some small stones, always a signal of 
danger, began to fall from the cliffs above. The father 
succeeded in climb'ng up a little way to a point where he 
could command a view of the fjelds. Suddenly he called 
out sharply, "Throw yourself on the eggs!" Like a flash 
the boy flung himself forward, and an instant later a 
great boulder crashed down, breaking away in its fall the 
ledge on which he had been standing. 
This island Vaagoe. does not rank among the best of 
the bird islands. There are some fine cliffs for auks and 
guillemots, but as a rule the highest rocks face north- 
ward, an imfavorable exposure for bird colonies. Myg- 
genoes, the most western of the Faroe group, has especial 
advantages from its isola ion and its precipitous coast. 
One can go there only in a kind of weather requiring such 
a combination of smiling circumstances and promise of 
future blessings that visitors to Myggenoes are few and 
far between. One makes no important engagements for 
the future when one goes to Myggenoes. 
Since beginning this letter I have left Midvag and am 
now .^t Bo, the nearest hamlet to Myggenoes, on the west- 
ern coast of Vaagoe. The morning I started was so beau- 
tiful that it was hard to find a guide and bearers for my 
luggage. We have few warm, dry, sunny days in Faroes, 
and when one does come every man, woman and child is 
seized with a preternatural activity, and falls to work cod- 
fishing, bird catching, peat cutting and piling, weeding 
washing the new wool, dyeing, spinning yarn, churning, 
washing the family pattens, clothes and milk pans in the 
brook, all in addition to the usual farm and house work. 
The No. 3 babies are tending the N.o. 1 babies, while the 
No. 2 babies are marching up and down in the sun, drag- 
ging by a string iheir "horses" — a small whale's vertebra. 
Under such busy circumstances it is customary for the 
would-be traveler to go to the "SkydskafTer," an official 
whose business it is to secure guides or oarsmen. In the 
Faroes every man is required to serve in this way in 
lieu of military service in Denmark. There is a fi.Kcd tariff 
of wages, and the men serve in turn. No one officially 
summoned by the SkydskafFer can refu.se to go under 
penalty of a fine. Bul why ask the Skydskaffer to drag a 
stout young man whose labor is of value from his work in 
the peat fields when a Faroe grandfather thinks nothing 
of taking 40 pounds on his back, supported by a broad 
woolen band around the forehead, and trotting off with it 
across the fjelds? So these matters are often arranged 
privately, and those who can best be spared go with the 
traveler. In this case Hans Kristofi^er succeeded in 
securing an old man and two boys, and we started for Bo, 
^ It was not a difficult journey— one mile by land to 
Sorvags Lake or "vatn," two by boat to the northern 
end, two over the hills to Sorvags village and two by 
fjord to Bo. _ The trail was what is called Iiere "a good 
way" — that is, it was not over high hills or watery 
marshes. Such trifles as stones, boggy spots and hillocks 
are not considered worthy of mention. 
We passed quickly through Sorvag village and made no 
calls. A scourge of typhus, brought in a ship from Ice- 
land, had ravaged the little place and there had been 
many deaths. The few people we saw looked wan and 
haggard. But the stagnant pools and piles of refuse near 
the houses still remained. 
I waited on a grassy hillside while a boat was brought 
from the other side of the fjord. It stranded, being low 
tide, some distance from shore. But the grandfather was 
not at all put out. He took off his moccasins, rolled up 
his knee breeches, waded ashore, picked me up wi.hout a 
word and marched with me through the waves, carried all 
my traps to the boat and soon we were on our way to Bo. 
I had pictured Bo as quite a v'llage, and find only half 
a dozen houses huddled together between the fjord and the 
fjeld. There is nothing to do but watch the beautiful 
view and the eider ducks and talk with the men of Bo 
about the chances of my going to Myggenoes. That island 
is only nine miles out, but the seas are big, the currents 
exceptionally strong, and there are sudden surprises of 
fog, surf and squalls. There is but one place where 
the island can be reached, and that is possible only under 
certain conditions. When the tide is favorable, sea calm, 
no surf barometer high and rising, air clear and a ten- 
dency to light northeast breezes, that is true "Myggenoes 
six man weather." It had been gently intimated to me 
that when eight men are thought necessary, such a coward 
as I had better stay "to hum." I am sure I do not wish 
to go in "eight man weather." "One small boy weather," 
if there was .such a thing, would suit me best. So here I 
wait at Bo, seeing across the sea the misty cliff walls of my 
"desired haven." Elizabeth Taylor. 
In Vermont. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
During the montlis of January- and February of a recent 
year it was my fortune to drive three or four hundred 
miles through the valleys and over the hills of Vermont, 
and I am tempted to send you a few notes of observation 
and experience. I was glad of this opportunity to re- 
visit the Green Mountain State, well known to me in 
earher years, and to have fresh experience of many an 
old sensadon and impression, to meet again many of its 
good people, to enjoy their hospitality, to study anew 
their unique civilization and grow strong by breathing 
the wonderful air of those hills. 
I kept a keen lookout for game or, indeed, any signs 
of animal life, but was in this respect rather disappointed. 
My tally consis.ed of two or three dozen crows, a few 
downy or hairy woodpeckers, a half dozen bluejays, wary 
and sharp as usual, but quite at home and comfortable 
even on the coldest days, a very few flocks of snow bunt- 
ings, a chickadee or two,, three or four red squirrels and 
two ruffed grouse. 
In Windham county I heard stories of two or three 
bears killed last fall in the hill towns in the western part 
of the county, and one man told me of a bear wh'.ch one 
day crossed the road in Bennington county in front of a 
friend of his a few days before, A gratifying sentiment 
in favor of protecting game seemed to prevail. But in 
general the woods and fields seemed silent and tenantless. 
I looked carefully for tracks of the fox or other night 
prowlers, but was only three or four times successful. 
Neverthel CSS in XI lany towns I heard of very successful 
trapping, one man being credited with 55 foxes already, 
and I heard of several who had captured twenty-five or 
thirty apiece. Amazed at such records of fox trapping, I 
inquired more carefully, and found that in each case the 
trapper was said to possess some secret of a scent, which 
either in itself was very attractive to the fox — overcoming 
all his natural fear of a trap — or which, at any rate, ef- 
fectually neutralized the dreaded scent of man, which 
renders ordinary attempts at this mode of capture so 
fruitless. In one case a hunter was said to have brought 
the secret from "the West," and to have sold it to others 
for $5 per man and under pledge of secrecy. 
One day in skirting the base of a mountain I heard 
the melodious note of the fox hounds upon the mountain 
side, as they followed the trail, and every minute or two 
gave tongue. Such music — so familiar of old — had not 
fallen on my ears for 20 years, and I stopped my horse 
and listened with delight as long as I could hear a note. 
Talking with a man who came to the door of a neigh- 
boring house, I learned that he had dug out a litter of 
young foxes the spring before and had given one of the 
cubs to a boy in the neighborhood, who had brought it 
up and had succeeded in thoroughly taming it. Deter- 
mined to see for myself, I drove to the house of the boy 
and saw a yearling fox which was as tame as could be 
wished to the members of the famOy, tlionsgh a trifle sky 
of strangers. Reynard was usually kept chained in a pen 
because of liis tendency to cultivate too inliiiiatt relations 
with the farmers' chickens, but 1 was told that he was 
often let loose to go with the boys over the hills, and 
that he would come back with them as read.Iy as a dog. 
His master toUl ine that the famous scent used by the 
trappers was nothing more nor less than the musk of the 
skunk, and that its efl^ect was merely to dispel the scent 
of man, and that three or four drops scattered on and near 
the trap were sullicient. He told me in detail the proper 
localities for selling a trap for a fox, the south side of a 
bare hii! in a pasture, or in or near a spring in a swamp, 
and never in a deep wood. He thought no fox was 
ever trapped in the last situation, but I told him of having 
once myself caught a fox in a bear trap in the depths of 
a Maine forest. He thought ihis unusual and a mere 
"accident." I should be glad to know if readers of 
Forest and Stream know anything about the scent of 
which I have spoken, and if it is merely the musk of the 
skunk as this man said. 
Occasionally where the road skirted a bush-covered 
swamp or passed through a deep wood I saw the tracks 
of the northern hare, but not half so abundant as I ex- 
pected to find them. In short, Vermont seemed, to the 
winter visitant, nearly swept bare of wild life of all kinds. 
But I found much to interest the lover of out-door things. 
The old men told me stories of the old times, and I 
heard many and many an expression so happily embalmed 
in that New England classic and dialect study, "Uncle 
Lisha's Shop." I found no "Antwine," but Uncle Lisha 
himself and Sam Lovel "and 'mungst 'em" more than 
once appeared, and I listened with greatest enjoyment to 
their speech. But this, too, is passing away, and I re- 
marked how almost invariably, even in the parts most 
remote from the railway, and no matter on how high and 
bleak a hill or lonely cross-road, when I called at a door 
to inquire the way, some sweet-voiced woman of refined 
manner and pure speech answered me. 
Surely the New England yeomanry had never its equal 
in this world. Nowhere else under such circumstances 
could people of such intelligence and absolute independ- 
ence be found. When one tries to find anything like a 
parallel, the Scottish people is the only one which comes 
to mind. Not Bismarck himself had more independence 
of spirit or was more unconscious of amenability to any 
class or rank than these men, or discussed affairs of state 
with any more confidence in his own judgment or his 
right to judge of them. And great good comes of this— 
a good inestimable in the history of the world. It has set 
the type for American citizenship. From it has sprung 
a giant race which does not know, and never can be made 
to know, "the dignity that doth hedge a king." This is 
the pivot, amply strong and sufficient, on which, in time, 
to swing the world from the old path into the new. There- 
fore all hail to the Yankee! The home-spuu world re- 
generator! 
The Vermont boys still emigrate to "the 'Hio," as 
Uncle Lisha did, and for similar reasons in reality. The 
sadness of the "deserted farm" was forced upon me in 
many a place. The abandoned "bildin's," the orchard 
growing scrubby and unkempt, the fences uncared for, and 
iniles of stone wall so carefully and toilsomely laid to 
rid of stones the land which no one now cares to till, and 
to park boundaries which no one any longer cares to 
maintain— all tel! the ston,- of the strong and patient and 
faithful life which was once lived there, and pathetically 
plead for its rehabilitation. But it is not, in my judgment, 
best. "The old order changeth, giving place to new," and 
a new order which, all things considered, I must think 
to be an advance upon the old. To maintain the old by 
artificial means and efl^orts not spontaneous and naturjil 
will be a waste of strength. 
Many of the old pastures and hillsides are growing up 
to trees, and I rejoiced to see it. Especially do I rejoice 
to see the sandy knolls and intervals growing up to pines. 
I mourn the giant pines— the "old growth"— sacrificed so 
long ago to no profit, and only, in many cases, to un- 
cover a thin and sandy soil to the plow. Of what vast 
value would they not be now if they had been preserved! 
The pine is the proper growth and ornament and crop 
of much Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine land, and 
I rejoice to see the second-growths — rising straight in 
crowded ranks— thick at the tops and ever aspiring in the 
rivalry for sunlight, shaded and dark below and trim- 
ming themselves as they grow. And it does not take 
so very long for pine to grow. Before I had seen my 
thirty-fifth year I had seen pines which would furnish fair 
'saw-logs," growing on ground which I had also in early 
boyhood seen bare and sown to grain. 
The timber slaughterer is equally with the game de- 
stroyer the object of my maledictions. Many readers of 
Forest and Stream will remember the giant growth of 
black walnut which covered hundreds of thousands of 
acres in Indiana and Michigan, and which were cleared 
by axe and fire to make room for cultivation, when only 
one State further on were millions of treeless acres only 
waiting for the plow. A friend tells mc that on his farm 
near Terre Haute, the fences are all made of straight, split 
rails of black walnut, and the barns and outbuildings are 
made of black walnut boards two feet in width. 
But I wanted to speak of the rock maples. Vermont is 
their parad se and home. The "sugar-bush," as the maple 
grove is called, stands on every hillside, usually with 
the neat "sugar-house," at the lower edge of it, well fitted 
with patent evaporating pans (which have replaced the 
primitive "arch-kittle"), a steam escape in the roof, and 
pile of "sugar-wood" at the door. 
The farnier here speaks of "getting up his sugar-wood" 
as naturally as he does of sheep-shearing or haying or 
"banking up" his house in the fall. O the delights of the 
".<iugar-bush" in "sao-time!" Involuntarily I smacked 
my hps and sniffed the air as I thought of them. To my 
palate maple syrup— from the first run of sap. and which 
has never been crystallized— is the finest sweet in all the 
world. ^ Honey suggests, perhaps, a more poetic thought, 
but It is too cloying. The maple flavor is honest and 
not overpowenng, and yet, to one whose youthful tooth 
was trained upon it, suggestive of a thousand delights 
that are unspeakably subtle and fine. But the early train- 
ing must be there or maple sweet has no special charm 
Having described maple sugar and the joys of its making 
to some English friends, T once took over to them some 
cakes of the genuine article, but to my chagrin found 
