Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of. the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1901, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $i a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. (_ 
Six Months, $2. ( 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1901. 
J VOL. LVI.— No. 11. 
j No. 346 Broadway, New York 
By the side of a pleasant river thou art otherwise pursuing thy 
recreation. For the gliding of waters, the song of birds, the low- 
ing of cattle, the view of delightful prospects, and the various 
occupations of rural life, shall dispose thee to quiet reflection; 
while the beauties of Nature, the power, wisdom, and goodness of 
the Almighty in caring for all His creatures, the ordef and course 
of His providence, the rewards of a good life, and the certainty of 
thine end be thy subjects of mediation. — Charles Cotton. 
ILLUSTRATION SUPPLEMENTS. 
Continttingf the illusttation supplements which 
have been an acceptable featwre of the Forest 
and Stream, we have prepared a new series of 
foar pictures which will be gfiven with the first 
:nt(mber of the month, as follows: 
Maj' 6 — The Trapper's Camp. Drawn by E. W. Deming. 
May 4 — Rap Full. The schooner yacht Constellation in 
a northeaster. From a photo by Stebbins. 
June I — Between Casts. On a trout stream. Drawn by 
W. P. Davison, 
^futy 6— The Home of the Bass. Drawn by W. P. 
-Davison. 
DUCKS AND CABBAGES. 
A CLAUSE which was contained in the general game bill 
before the Indiana Legislature was in these words : "Tliat 
it shall be lawful to hunt on swamp and overflow lands, 
which have never been cultivated, or are not situated 
within foi-ty rods of cultivated lands, without securing 
the consent of the owner or tenant' of such lands." The 
proAdsion was eventually stricken out, but had it been 
retained it could have counted for nothing, since it mtist 
have been declared null and void by the courts, as an in- 
vasion of property rights. 
The owner of a tract of land, whether the land be un- 
cultivated or covered with a crop of cabbages, by the very 
fact of his proprietorship has exclusive possession of 
it and exclusive enjoyment of its use, whether for grow- 
ing cabbages on it or shooting game over it. or fishing on 
it or entering upon and being upon it. This sole and ex- 
clusive right of occupation, use and enjoyment is wrapped 
up in the ownership ; in short, the ownership consists in 
just that and nothing more. To declare by statute that 
the public may have free run of a person's land, whether 
for shooting or for any other purpose, is to invade and 
nullify the owner's exclusive right of occupancy and 
use, and in efifect is to confiscate the land for public use. 
That is precisely what this Indiana proposition would 
have amounted to, and no such scheme of land confisca- 
tion could have stood in the courts. 
The Indiana Legislature may no more confer upon 
shooters the right to trespass upon private lands for 
shooting than they may give the right to squat upon pri- 
vate lands for cabbage growing. There is a widespread 
popular delusion in this country respecting the right to 
invade lands for shooting,- but it might reasonably be 
expected that legislatures should not share these mis- 
taken notions. 
ADIRONDACK GAME REFUGES. 
An admirable measure has been introduced at Albany 
to provide for game refuges in the Adirondacks. Mr. 
Axtell is the author, and his bill empowers the Forest, 
Fish and Game Commission by resolution to set aside 
parts of the Forest Preserve, each not exceeding 10,000 
acres in extent, and not exceeding in the aggregate one 
twentj-fifth of the preserve, as places of refuge and propa- 
gation for animals and birds. The boundaries of such 
places are to be stated and to consist of water, highways, 
railroads or townships, tract or lot lines. Provision is 
made for publishing resolutions to this effect and for the 
due posting of the limits thtis set apart ; and when these 
conditions shall have been complied with, disturbing or 
hunting game within the confines of the refuge is to 
be punishable. The having in possession of hunting ap- 
pliances within the preserved area is made an offense. 
This would be an admirable innovation in Adirandack 
game preservation, and Mr. Axtell's bill should have 
warm, support. We have freqitentlj' pointed out the ad- 
vantages of such refuges in a game country. The Yel- 
lowstone National Park is on a large scale what we might 
well have as protected areas, large or small, in many of 
the States. The private preserves in the Adirondacks 
are demonstrating from year to year, by the overflow of 
the game from them into contiguous territory, the bene- 
ficial effect they have on the game supply. There are 
good hunting tracts in the North Woods to-day which 
owe their game stock to the preserved lands adjoining 
them. We see the principle demonstrated on a smaller 
scale by the improved bird shooting in the neighborhood 
of posted farms. The State as a landowner may well 
adopt the game preserve system for a portion of its wild 
land holdings in the Adirondacks. With game harbors 
here and there through the North Woods, nature may be 
depended upon to maintain the stock of deer indefinitely. 
What is good for the Rocky Mountains and for the 
Adirondacks is good for the rest of the country. Here 
is an inexpensive and efiFective expedient for game con- 
servation which should have general adoption. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The Maine Legislature has enacted a law for the pro- 
tection of wild birds which is a model of its kind. It 
protects all wild birds, except the English sparrow, the 
common crow, the hawks and owls and the game birds, 
from being killed, caught or had in possession, living or 
dead, or bought, sold, offered or exposed for sale. No 
part of the plumage, skin or body of any bird protected 
by the section may be sold, or had in possesison for sale, 
nor shall the nest or eggs be taken or needlessly destroyed 
or had in possession. The garne birds are defined accord- 
ing to the terms of the act formulated many years ago by 
the American Ornithologists' Luiion, as the anatidje, in- 
cluding swans, geese and ducks ; the rallidse, rails, coots, 
mud hens and gallinules ; the limicolse, shore birds, 
plovers, snipe, woodcock, etc., and the gallinse, turkeys, 
grouse and quail. 
The chief purpose is evidently to protect the gulls and 
terns of the Maine coast, whose shameful destruction in 
recent years has been so often adverted to in these col- 
umns. The form of the law is especially to be praised, 
since instead of protecting a few species by their common 
vernacular names, which to most people mean nothing, 
it spreads the mantle of the State's protection over all 
birds except certain named species, which are clearly 
defined. 
The credit for the initiation of this legislation in Maine 
is chiefly due to Mr. Wm. Dutcher, representing the Bird 
Protective Committee of the .A.merican Ornithologists' 
Union, 
The South Branch of the Potomac, to which public at- 
tention has been drawn because of the threatened destruc- 
tion of the fishing, is one of the notable examples of the 
lasting benefits of fishculture, for the Potomac was not 
by nature a black bass stream. The bass was introduced 
into the Potomac Basin, at Cumberland, in the year 
1853 by Gen. W. W. Schriner, of Wheeling. Soon there- 
after the anglers began to take out noble specimens of the 
small-mouth, and for almost a half-century the South 
Branch has been counted among the best black bass waters 
of the East. It has attracted hundreds of anglers from 
Wheeling, Washington, Pittsbtirg and . many other points 
more remote, and the commercial returns to the people of 
the vicinity in the revenues derived from visiting fisher- 
men have been in the aggregate large and important. It 
would be stupid and foolish now to permit the fishing 
resources of the South Branch to be ruined by a tannery, 
as is threatened. 
It is gratifjdng to note that the sentiment in favor of 
shortening the season during which wild ducks may be 
killed is growing. The bill passed at the last session of 
the Legislature of Massachusetts forbids the killing after 
March i of any ducks except the coots or scoters, a group 
which furnishes much winter shooting along the Massa- 
chusetts coast. These scoters, however, not being highly 
vakted as food, are shot very little except on the coast of 
New England, New York and New T^^sey. It may con- 
fidently be predicted that in a short tim.e the State of 
Connecticut will take her place in the ranks' of those who 
are in favor of wildfowl protection. Meantime the sports- 
men of the country will watch with interest the course of 
the Empire State to see whether the selfish interests of the 
few shall override the good of the many 
INDIAN MAPLE SUGAR. 
M.APLE sugar is something that is familiar to every 
one, and a very large number of people in the northern 
tier of States are not only familiar with the product it- 
self, but with the way in which it is manufactured. In 
old times, when the country was new, when there were no 
means of rapid communication, and people lived far from 
one another, the annual sugar making was an important 
part of the year's work. In many places the maple tree 
furnished the only sugar that was to be had, and the 
faihire to gather a good sugar crop meant a failure to have 
sugar in the settler's tea or coffee during a part of the 
year. 
To-day many millions of pounds of maple sugar and 
millions of gallons of maple molasses are manufactured 
each year in the United States and in Canada, so that the 
industry of making sugar from these splendid trees is 
one of some importance. 
Very few of the people to whom maple sugar is an 
entirely familiar and commonplace thing are aware of the 
fact that the method of making sugar was taught to the 
white people by the Indians, and that they made sugar 
long before the discovery of America. This is only one 
of the many things that the white people learned from 
the Indians. Others were the weaving of cotton, the 
cultivation of Indian corn and the use of tobacco. 
Some of the early writers tell us that the French were 
the first to make this sugar, and that they learned how 
to make it from the Indian women. The sap was col- 
lected in a rude way, a gash being cut in the tree and into 
this a stick was thrust, down which the freely flowing 
sap dripped into a vessel of birch bark, or a gourd, or into 
wooden troughs hollowed out by fire or the axe. Then 
into larger wooden troughs full of the sap, red-hot stones 
were thrown — just as in old times they used to be thrown 
into the water in which food was boiled — and by con- 
stantly throwing in hot stones and taking out those that 
had become cool the sap was boiled and evaporated, and 
at length syrup was made, which later became sugar. 
This manufacture of the sugar was not confined to any 
one tribe, but was practiced by all Northern Indians, and 
was known to those living as far south as Florida and 
Texas. Among the sugar-making tribes a special festival 
was held, which was called the maple dance, which was 
undoubtedly a religious festival in the nature of a prayer 
or propitiatory ceremony, asking for an abundant flow 
of sap and for good fortune in collecting it. 
In "Drake's Indian Captivity" Colonel Smith speaks of 
the manufacture of sugar as follows : "In this month 
[February] we began to make sugar. As some of the 
elm bark will strip at this season, the squaws, after find-' 
ing a tree that would do, cut it down, and with a crooked 
stick, broad and sharp at the end, took the bark oflf the 
tree, and of this bark made vessels in a curious man- 
ner that would hold about two gallons each. They made 
about one hundred of these kinds of vessels. In the sugar 
tree they cut a notch sloping down, and at the end of the 
notch stuck in a tomahawk; in the place where they stuck 
the tomahawk they drove a long chip, in order to carry 
the water out from the tree, and under this they set their 
vessels to receive it. As sugar trees were plenty and 
large here [on the southeast shore of Lake Erie], they 
seldom, or never, notched a tree that was not two or three 
feet or over. They also made bark vessels for carrying 
water, that would hold about four gallons each. They 
had two brass kettles that held about fifteen gallons each 
and other small kettles in which they boiled the water. 
But as they could not at times boil away the water as 
fast as it was collected, they made vessels of bark that 
would hold about one hundred gallons each for retaining 
the water, and though the sugar trees did not run every 
day, they had always a sufficient quantity of water to 
keep them boiling during the whole sugar season. 
"The way we commonly used our sugar while in camp 
was by putting it in bear's fat until the fat was almost as 
sweet as the sugar itself, and in this we dipped our roasted 
venison." Speaking of an occasion when utensils for 
boiling the sap were lacking, he gives an incident which 
shows a clear knowledge on the part of the Indians of 
certain properties of the maple sap. He says: "We 
had no large kettles with us this year, and they n'ade the 
frost, in some measure, supply the plj^ce of fire in making 
sugar. The large bark vessels for holding the stock 
water they made broad and shallow, and as the weather is 
very cold here, it frequently freezes at night jn suga? 
1. 
