Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
CopvRiGHT, 1901, Bv Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. } 
Six Months, $2. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1901. 
j VOL. LVI.— No. 10. 
\ No. 346 Broadway, New Yor« 
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- 
gardec. 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. 
It may occur to analytical minds that the amount of labor is 
not commensurate with the utmost possible reward — i. e., a single 
sliot at mallard.s — for a hard night's work, plus a cold breakfast on 
beer, bread and cheese. I am not going to argue that the game 
is worth the candle, but there is a period in life (past for some of 
us) when hard work and endurance are ignored, when cost is not 
counted, but adverse odds accepted, and no price deemed too high 
if thereby can be achieved some result one's mind is set upon. — 
Abel Chapman. 
NEW YORICS FORESTS, FISH AND GAME. 
The views expressed in another column by Mr. W. A. 
Wadsworth, President of the New York Forest. Fish and 
GarmS" Commission, are extremely interesting, because 
those of a sportsman who has had experience of the in- 
side, as well as the outside, workings of New York's 
laws on this su.bject. He calls attention to the anomalous 
position of the Commission, and shows how, even with 
the best will in the world, the most faithful officials are 
liindered by laws — supposedly for the public advantage — ■ 
from doing those things most desirable for the State. 
Our fish and game and, our f6rests, which ought to be a 
source of revenue to the State which owns them, are in- 
stead of this a great and growing expense, and year by 
year are deteriorating. The forests, utterly neglected, 
though in some places protected from destruction by the 
axe, ripen, die, fall down and decay. The game of a 
State containing 47.000 square miles, 60 counties and 
7,000,000 inhabitants is looked, after by thirty game pro- 
tectors — half a man for each county — with the result that 
the game and fish are not protected, so that sportsmen 
genuinely interested in its conservation are constantly 
grumbling over violations of the law, expecting the game 
pro.ectors to perform physical impossibilities. 
Had it not been that the bill for the reorganization of 
the Commission was pending before the New York 
Legislature when Mr. Wadsworth's letter was written, he 
might perhaps have spoken more fully than he has, and 
might have expressed the view that the four interests in 
control of the Commission — forest, fish, game and shell 
fish — should be under the control of four indiA'iduals— a 
forester, a fishculturist, a chief protector and a shell fish 
commissioner. Such a system is the one which has long 
been urged in these columns as the one most business- 
like and efficient. It has partial realization in the law just 
enacted to create a new commission. 
Those who have had the widest experience in the prac- 
tical protection of game and those who have studied the 
problem most carefully are agreed with Mr. Wadsworth 
in attaching great importance to the trespass laws. As 
he writes, the ultimate conservation of the game supply 
must depend upon the protection of the birds and the 
quadrupeds by tlie owner of the land on which they range, 
and the effectiveness of the protection the land owner may 
give is in turn dependent upon the extent to which he 
may be enabled to prevent trespass. In America we are 
passing through a period of far-reaching changes with 
respect to the freedom of ranging over lands for shooting. 
The growing tendenc}' is to regard shooting as a privilege 
to be paid for, and the growing practice is to exact pay- 
ment for the privilege. There is a more common recogni- 
tion now than ever before on the part of the land owner 
that for the right of shooting over his lands some com- 
pensation should be made ; and as the columns of Forest 
AND Stream will show, the sportsman on his part is ac- 
cepting the new condition and for his shooting is looking 
to farmers and other land owners who in return for such 
payment can assure him game. The trespass laws, as a 
rule, have proved inadequate to secure protection for the 
land owner, and in some States the remedy for this has 
been sought in the enactment of laws with dire penalties 
for their infringement. Such statutes, however, are only 
likely to defeat their purpose. Juries refuse to make them- 
selves parties to the infliction of punishments which are 
out of all reasonable prooortion to the offense. The 
remedy for a lax observance of the trespass laws, we be- 
lieve, is not to be found in increased severity of the 
statutes. It is indeed something which is incapable of 
immediate attainment.. It can come only, and it will come 
only, when the course of education we are now going 
through shall have advanced to a stage where the rights 
of land owners in this regard shall have popular recogni- 
tion, and the trespass laws shall in consec[uence be made 
efficient by the power of public opinion. 
It would perhaps have been difficult to find any one 
likely to take a broader view of this .subject than Mr. 
Wadsworth. He is a man of ripe experience, from his 
youth up devoted to all the best out-door sports, a man of 
means, a land owner and farmer, the President of the 
Boone and Crockett Club. 
Since Mr. Wadsworth's letter was received, the bill for - 
the reorganization of the Commission has passed the. 
Legislature, and the newspapers haA'e announced the 
names of certain individuals who are to be the paid and 
unpaid Commissioners. The appointments, however, have 
not lieen made. 
L\r THE NEVADA SCHOOLS. 
Wk have become accustomed to look to the West for 
innovations and inventions in game protection methods. 
The latest development is in a Nevada law, which Fish 
Commissioner Geo. T. Mills sends us, just enacted by the 
Nevada Legislature. It provides that every teacher in the 
public schools shall give oral instruction, at least once a 
month, to all children attending .such schools relative to 
the preservation of song birds, fish and game, and read, or 
cause to be read, to such children, at least twice during 
each school year, the fish and game laws of the State of 
Nevada. In case of failure to do this the teacher's pay 
shall be withheld. 
That is a sensible law. If the fish and the game and 
bird life of Nevada are worth preserving, they are worth 
teaching the school children about. In no other way may 
the popular ignorance of and indifference to these great 
native resources be so speedily and surely overcome as by 
thus beginning with the children of to-day. who are to be 
the men and women of to-morrow. 
There are many things taught in the schools to-day of 
less use to the pupils and of less benefit to the community 
than the game laws. If Nevada shall pursue this system 
of game law education for a decade the changed sentiment 
in that State will be worth more than an army of game 
and fish wardens. 
"PHGRATORY." 
That term "migratory'' stands in the way of the pro- 
tection which wildfowl ought to have in New York. Wild 
ducks are thought of as migratory, and spoken of as 
migratory, and legislated for as migratory. The popular 
conception of them and their practical treatment is of 
migratory species, which pass across the State, south in 
the autunm and north in the spring, and are not to be 
classed as residents. 
This is a great mistake. It is a mistake because while it 
is of course true that the wild ducks are migratory, there 
are yet some species of them which if given the oppor- 
tu.nitv would not all go north in the spring, but would 
in some number remain to nest in New York marshes. 
But so firmly implanted in the popular mind is this 
migratory nature of the birds that the task of persuading 
the lawmakers to give the nesting birds a chance is an 
extremely difficult one. If we could have a practical test 
for a few years there is reason to believe that the actual 
breeding of W'ildfowl in New York and the improved 
shooting thus afforded would convince the public of the 
utility of the prohibition of spring shooting. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The bill to reorganize and combine the New York 
Forestry Preserve Board and the Fisheries, Forest and 
Game Commission was passed last week. It provides for 
one salaried commissioner at $5,000 a year, who shall 
serve for four years, and two consulting commissioners 
without salary, to serve two years, at the end of which 
term the salaried commissioner Avill serve alone. The 
offices of State fishculturist, game protector and forester 
are retained. The newspapers have announced that 
Governor Odell would name for the new Commission De 
Witt C. Middleton, of Watertown, a meniber of the old 
Commission. At the present writing there has been no 
official confirmation of this statement, but, as has already 
been said in these columns, the appointment of Mr. 
Middleton would be accepted with much satisfaction by 
those who are conversant with his record in the old board. 
It is also given out that Messrs. Woodruff and Babcock, 
of the old Forestry Board, will be named for the new 
Commission. 
Mr. Hallock's letter on the ruination of the Denny s 
River is just what might have been looked for from one 
who knew so well the stream in its prime. He voices the 
indignation and protest all right minded men| must feel 
who are familiar with the circumstances. We trust that 
the people of Dennysville may find a way to abate the 
nuisance of mill refuse which has overwhelmed them. 
The Dennys River is a type of a vast number of waters 
which have been ruined by the selfishness and greed and 
brazen effrontery of individuals who have outraged the 
conununity by their saw mills and tanneries and refineries 
and rendering works. Tiverton, Rhode Island, is a case 
in point. Set amid enchanting scenery, on a river teem- 
ing with fish, and holding out manifold allurements to the 
summer resident; Tiverton was in an evil hour chosen 
as a site for a fish oil factory. The town's ruin as a 
summer resort speedily followed. The infernal stench 
from the fi-sh factory nauseated the summer boarder, and 
packing his trunks he left incontinently. The refuse which 
was spread abroad upon the waters killed the fish, 
poisoned even the scallops and quahogs, and so defiled the 
hulls of yachts that the vile harbor was given a wide 
berth by yachtsmen. The place was converted from one 
of the most inviting spots on the Atlantic coast into a 
stench breeding nuisance, and for the personal advantage 
of the fish oil renderers the rights of the community were 
defied. 
An unusual case was heard in Wilbraham, Mass., the 
other day, when the owner of a dog was summoned to 
answer the charge of being the keeper of a dog found 
chasing deer. The extraordinary feature was the exist- 
ence of the deer in Hampden county for dogs to chase. 
Several deer have been reported of late in the roads of 
Avestern Massachusetts, and it is no idle fanyc that if the 
cleared country continues to revert to woodland at the 
present rate, one of these days there may be deer hunting 
in a region where it has been extinct for generations. 
Two sportsmen's expositions are in progress in the 
two great cities of New York and Chicago, and tens of 
thousands of visitors are getting a sniff of woodsy scents 
and a glimpse of the creatures of the forests and the out- 
door life of the rod and gun folk. Just now then the 
sportsman and his world hold a large place in the public 
eye. 
An effort is making in Connecticut to provide by 
legislation for the opening of public highways to ponds 
and lakes. The movement has been prompted by the 
extraordinary growth of fishing and shooting preserves 
in Connecticut. Syndicates and individuals have been 
taking up lands and waters at a prodigious rate, and 
many a community is finding itself shut out from 
privileges which have been enjoyed from time imme- 
morial. In some States, as in New Hampshire, the statute 
provides that on application by the people the road com- 
missioners may open a way, and maintain it, for public 
access to waters which are entirely surrounded by posted 
lands. 
The introduction of Mongolian pheasants has been an 
unsuccessful enterprise in Vermont. The capercailzie 
which were imported from Sweden and put out in the 
neighborhood of Dr. Seward Webb's estate at Shelburne 
did not survive. The sharp-tailed grouse which were 
brought from the West are believed to have fallen vic- 
tims to the farmers' boys, who on sundry occasions have 
reported the killing of strange pa'tridges. The only im- 
ported game for the survival of which there appears to be 
hope is the black game which came from Sweden. It is 
known that the birds bred and hatched their broods. The 
introduction of the capercailzie has not been abandoned as 
an impossibility. With the experience already gained 
those who are interested in the enterprise will avoid the 
mistakes of the past, and the gaine may yet be established 
in North America, 
