Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1901, by Forest anu Strbam Publishing Co^ 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 2 7, 1901. 
( VOL. LVH.— No. 4. 
I 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 
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. 
Fly-fishing holds the same relation to bait-fishing that poetry does 
to prose. Not only the fly but every implement of the fly-fisher's 
outfit is a materialized poem.— Tames A. Henshall. 
THE ADIRONDACK FORESTS. 
At the request of the New York Forest, Fish and Game 
Commission the Division of Forestry of the United States 
Department of Agriculture has prepared a forest working 
plan for Township 40 in the Adirondacks. The plan is 
and can be a plan only, for under existing conditions the 
scheme may not be put into operation. It is, in fact, de- 
signed to be only an object lesson, to demonstrate what 
might be done under different circumstances. 
In its forest preserve New York possesses a timber 
supply of immense value, and one from which if it were 
wisely administered a large and constant revenue might be 
drawn for generations to come. But the chief value of the 
forest is as a storage reservoir for the water supply, and 
its function in this respect is of such transcendent im- 
portance that it is the one first to be made secure and per- 
petuated for all time. So welt' comprehended was this 
value of the forest for water storage purposes that in 1894 
the people of the State adopted by a great popular vote an 
amendment to the constitution declaring that "the lan,ds of 
the State now owned or herpfter acquired constituting 
the Forest Preserve as now fixed by law shall be forever 
kept as wild forest land. They shall not be leased, sold or 
exchanged or be taken by any corporation, public or pri- 
vate, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or 
destroyed." It was felt at the time by those who were 
informed in forestry that this was not altogether the 
wisest forest plan to adopt as a lasting policy ; but there 
was an overwhelming conviction that, with the forests 
menaced as they then were by the interests which were 
eager to seize and convert them for private aggrandize- 
ment, the very safest cgurse was to make sure that not a 
tree should be touched. And so by this clause of the con- 
stitution the State forests are protected to-day, and so 
they will continue to be protected so long as the constitu- 
tional provision .shall be retained. 
The working plan prepared by the Division of Forestry 
for Township 40 is intended to show what the practical 
result might be if, the constitutional prohibition -having 
been removed, the Adirondacks and Catskill public forests 
were administered in accordance with the principles of 
practical scientific forestry as developed and followed 
abroad. 
Township 40 forms part of the towii of Long Lake, in 
Hamilton county, and is one of the largest and most com- 
pact blocks of State land within the limits of the Adiron- 
dack Park. It has an area of 25,660 acres. Of the three 
watersheds within the township, the most important con- 
tains Raquette Eake, which is a part of the Blue Moun- 
tain River drainage, and receives the waters of Blue 
Mountain Lake, one of the principal sources of the Blue 
Mountain River, through Eagle Lake, Utowana Lake and 
Marion River, together with several other important 
streams. A second watershed is tributary to Forked Lake 
and Brandreth Lake Outlet, and a third drains into the 
Big Moose Lake system. The township is well wooded 
with hardwood and soft wood trees» the latter predominat- 
ing. After a thorough study of the forestry problems 
involved, the Government officials have prepared this 
report, of which the conclusions inay be summarized in 
brief as follows; we use in part the language of the 
report : 
Uncier the systematic and conservaitive system of man- 
agemep.t advise4 m tbp P^^^i, th§re wotdd be no interfer- 
fnce whateypr Wtt^h the value of the fore.sts as 9 cbn-server 
of the water supply. In this statement Mr. F. H. Newell, 
Hydrographer of the United States Geological Survey; 
joins with his authority after a personal examination of 
the township. 
There is on the township a sufficient stand of mature 
.spruce, pine and balsam to insure profitable lumbering 
under economical and conservative methods. 
The township is covered with virgin forest, in which 
the annual decay of the over mature trees offsets the an- 
nual growth, and each year many large trees die or are 
blown down and decay; whereas if they were harvested 
they would mean a considerable revenue, and the pro- 
ducing power of the forest being unimpaired, the condi- 
tions of growth would be improved. With conservative 
litmbering successive crops might be cut from the forest 
at recurring intervals for an indefinite period. 
Under practical forestry, then, the tract would yield a 
sustained revenue without in any way interfering with the 
objects for which the Forest Preserve was created and 
without injury to its natural beauties. 
The report lays down as a rule which would insure the 
safety of the forests and preserve their functions as a con- 
server of the water supply and public recreation ground, 
that no trees should be cut except such as should have 
been determined upon after a thorough study of the 
effect of the cuttings upon the forests, and after such trees 
should have been officially marked by the State officers in 
charge. 
Thus it is seen that In effect this report sustains the 
wisdom of those who at the time of the adoption of the 
constitutional amendment, while thoroughly approving 
and working for that amendment, were convinced that' 
the policy of permanent absolute protection should not be 
the course to be maintained by the State. The last ten 
years have witnessed a wonderful growth of popular in- 
telligence In regard to forestry, both as to the value of the 
forests as water storage reservoirs, and as to the distinc- 
tion which exists between lumbering and scientific foi*- 
estrj^ The time will never come when the people of the 
State will rescind the fore;>t clause of the constitution, to 
give the public land over into the hands of unrestrained 
lumbermen. But the time may come, and at no distant 
day. when New York will be ready to exchange the pres- 
ent absolute prohibition of tree cutting for an adequately 
safeguarded system of scientific forest administration ; it 
will come indeed just as soon as the people shall have con- 
fidence that their forest resources can be administered 
with intelligence and honesty. 
A vast change is working in this country with respect 
to forestry. The end is at hand of the old regime of 
wasteful destruction by the lumberman. The day of the 
forester is about to be ushered In; and under his con- 
trol and direction private and public forests alike will be 
condticted in the same way that European forests are 
managed, so that year after year and from generation to 
generation of trees and men the mature timber will be 
cut, but the forest will never be impaired in productiveness 
and value. 
SHOOTING AT THE TRAP AND IN THE FIELD. 
There is no doubt that trapshooting, particularly that 
branch of it called target shooting, was originally devised 
as a kind of substitute for field shooting, and also as a 
kind of useful training for the field. In accord with that 
theory, the conditions governing the flights and manner 
of shooting were made as nearly similar to those govern- 
ing field shooting as the circumstances permitted. Thus 
in the first days of trapshooting at targets Bogardus 
claimed that his glass ball and glass ball trap were "for 
wing practice." Indeed, to give a semblance of realism 
to target shooting, Ira A. Paine invented and patented a. 
feather-filled glass ball, for which he claimed the merit 
of its being "the only substitute ever invented for a living 
bird." 
Consistently with the theory of wing practice, the 
shooter was required to -stand with his "gun below the 
elbow" when at the score ready to shoot, the purpose 
being to place him in the same unprepared condition at 
the rise pf the target as he was supposed to be at the rise 
of the. bird in actual field shooting. Since those days of 
simple begjimflogs, target shooting has advanced to a stage 
at which it is an art Jn itself. 
However, resting on tBfe assumption that trapshooting, 
either as an art or as a means of sport, was practiced 
truly in its early days only^ and that, all departure there- 
from in practice is detrimental or pernicious, there are 
those who periodically call afttentlon to the decadence of 
trapshooting as it Is conducted-, at present. It is particu- 
larly insisted by the old-time crifi^;^ of the present that in 
those unstable and vague periods "'??i^time, strung along 
through the ages from time immemorial, referred to as 
"the good old days," things were so different. The crude 
and tentative beginnings are accepted by them as the true 
standaVds of development and procedure for all time. 
Change to them denotes decadence, though change is the 
essence of progress. 
By them the evolution In the manner of holding the 
gun at the traps Is specially deplored. They maintain with 
constant insistence that the old way of holding It — that 
Is, "gun below the elbow" — was the correct way, for, say 
they, what a sorry figure a man would cut walking around 
in field and cover with his gun glued to his shoulder as 
It is when he stands at the traps. Such critics entirely 
overlook the fact that field shooting and trapshooting are 
twO' distinct specialties. Each style of shooting contains 
some elementary principles which are alike in both, but, in 
the main, the practice must be governed by the distinct 
circumstances peculiar to each form of shooting. 
Target shooting, even when practiced after the ancient 
manner, Is not an Imitation of live-bird shooting, for, in 
practicing the latter, the bird In most Instances Is flushed 
within a few feet of the shooter, who then has ample time 
to adjust his gun and kill the bird at close range. In quail 
shooting, by far the greater number of birds are gathered 
within twenty-five yards of the shooter. The flight of the 
game bird at the start is its slowest; the flight of the 
target at the start Is its quickest. The game bird may 
rise a few inches from the shooter's feet; the target Is 
sprung at a certain number of yards from the shooter. 
However, starting as a school of practice In shooting, as 
the details of target shooting were more and more per- 
fected, it was found to have all the' inherent qualities of a 
sport In Itself, apart from all considerations of field shoot- 
ing. Experience demonstrated that the methods which 
were good in field shooting were not good in trapshooting, 
and therefore the newer and better methods were adopted. 
Trapshooters hold their guns to their shoulders for two 
reasons when shooting at the traps, namely, to save time 
from unnecessary motions, arid to have the gun more 
steadily aligned. The conditions are made so difficult that, 
even when the greatest care Is -observed, many misses are 
made. Nor does the shooter hold his gun so stiffly to 
his shoulder that it may be described as "glued." He, on * 
the contrary, must hold himself at ease so that he may 
swing in any direction with the greatest freedom. He 
does not maintain that his position when shooting targets 
is the correct one for shooting quail, but it is the correct 
one for shooting the target. 
There has been a great evolution in target shooting 
since its beginnings, and he who criticizes it from the 
viewpoint of "the good old days" is a good many years 
behind the times. 
Again, live-bird shooting at the traps requires quite a 
distinct style of shooting from target shooting. The 
skillful shooter needs to readjust his practice according to 
the governing circumstances when he changes from field 
shooting to target shooting, from target shooting to 
pigeon shooting, and from pigeon shooting to field shoot- 
ing. 
Nevertheless all trapshooters do ^ot hold their gTin 
firmly to their shoulders when ready to shoot at the 
traps, and this is particularly l^gi In respect to pigeon 
shooting. 
Yet, while having its well-defined and distinctive fea- 
tures as a sport, trapshootjhg Is a great aid as a prepars- 
tory schooling for thf, field. It is absurd to assume that 
all the skill possessed by a shooter when at the traps is 
lost when he a^timpts to shoot afield, and it is equally ab- 
surd to assume that a thorough schooling in trapsjiooting 
qualifieTbne fully for field shooting. 
Let the field shot and the trpashot remember respec- 
tively that they have a form of enjoyment, distinct an4 
perfect in itself, and that what may be good for tra]^^ 
shooting may be poof for field shooting, and vice veraa- . 
