Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1901, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Si-x Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1901. 
( VOL. LVII.— No. )9. 
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 sirlgle 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
TRAP AMATEURS AND PROFESSIONALS. 
The question of professional and amateur, as their com- 
petitive interests relate to each other in the trapshooting 
world, is one of constantly recurrent interest. The merit 
•of recognition which they should be conceded as com- 
petitors, or whether thty should receive any at all, is a 
matter on which opinions are distinctly and positively 
divided. 
In respect to the value of these opinions, it maj' be 
observed that very few of them are based on the theory 
of the greatest good to the greatest number. That large 
class of shooters commonly known as the eighty per 
cent, men in most instances consider the professional as 
being distinctly inimical to their interests, and, there- 
fore, by an illogical process of reasoning, as being distinctly 
inimical to the interests of the sport as a whole. The 
novice class and other classes also are prone to believe 
that the interests of themselves and their fellows are 
paramount in the sport, and essential to its best develop- 
ment and continuance. In short, matters as they appeal 
to the self-interest of each class have respectively been 
considered as being for the best interest of the whole. 
As in all other matters of general public interest, there 
undoubtedly is a happy medium to be found between the 
two extremes of conceding a free hand to the professional 
and conceding to him nothing at all. Undoubtedly the 
professional shooter whose skill at the traps is the spe- 
cialty by which he holds his position with his employers, 
has a distinct advantage over the amateur or the amateur- 
professional who shoots intermittent!}'. 
Let us consider the common ruling against the profes- 
sional ; namely, he is informed by the management of the 
average tournament that he may shoot for targets only; 
that he can have no part in competition for the purses, but 
that he may have every opportunity to display the goods 
of his employers. On analysis of this it is found that 
nothing whatever is conceded, but that the arrangement 
in almost every particular accrues to the benefit of said 
management. The club makes a profit from every target 
sliot at by the professional under this arrangement. The 
professionals, by their attendance, give a certain interest 
and prestige to the tournament which they attend, which 
in turn adds to the attractiveness of the event and to a 
greater attendance. This again is a gain to the tourna- 
ment. 
The ruling, as generally in force, thus arbitrarily 
classes all manufacturers' agents as professional shooters. 
A man may be a manufacturers' agent and yet have but 
little skill or no skill at all with the shotgun. It is quite 
absurd, therefore, to class a man as being expert with 
the shotgun on the question of occupation alone, particu- 
larly if the occupation is distinctly apart from shooting. 
Furthermore, to entirely bar the professional does not 
in the least protect the average amateur, for the reason 
that there is a class of amateur experts which is quite 
equal to the highest class of professional experts, so that 
the average shooter is pitted against precisely the same 
degree of skill even when the professional is barred. He 
has to contend against the same high-gradfe competition 
called by another name. That is the only true distinc- 
tion. 
Nor does the status of the shooting world admit of the 
same degree of discrimination which obtains in many 
other forms of sport against the professionals. If we con- 
sider the professional baseball player, bicycle rider, jockey, 
football player, etc.. we note that those forms of sport 
have great money-making resources in the way of gate 
money, large salaries, etc. If we consider the trap- 
shooter in the same relation, we note that the matter of 
gate money is hardly worthy of consideration. Salaries 
also are smaller. The action of trapshooting competition 
and the units which make up its substantial sum total do 
not admit of the sharper distinctions between professional 
ancj amateur which ar^ 4ra>vn ifl thg other sports enu- 
merated. Both professionals and amateurs are needed to 
sustain the competition. 
Moreover, to entirely bar professionals from a tourna- 
ment, detracts correspondingly from the competition, as 
it appeals to public consideration. A horse trot at a 
county fair would hardly engage the attention of all the 
county residents, but a race between such horses as The 
Abbot and Cresceus would engage the attention of the 
nation. This in a way serves to illustrate the loss to a 
tournament's importance which results from the total 
disbarment of the professional. 
Recognizing the value of the factors of trapshooting 
competition, it is much better to harmonize and preserve 
them, through establishing certain principles of equity in 
the competition by virtue of handicaps. 
The contestants, whether they be amateur or pro- 
fessional, vary greatly in the matter of skill, and, as in 
all other forms of sport, the handicap is essential to the 
equalization of the differences. 
The principles of the handicap are a constant feature 
of every other important branch of sport, such as horse 
racing, either running or trotting; bicycle racing; sprint- 
ing; yachting, etc.. and there is every reason for the best 
interest of the sport of trapshooting that it should be 
recognized as a part of it instead of being an incidental 
experiment. 
THE BLOOMING GROVE CHARTER. 
The seizure reported in our columns last week of cer- 
tain game which was about to be taken out of Pennsyl- 
vania by members of the Blooming Grove Park Associa- 
tion has served to direct attention to the peculiarly liberal 
charter of that organization. The Association was formed 
in 1871 for the purpose of establishing a shooting and 
fishing preserve in the townships of Blooming Grove, 
Green and Porter, in Pike county. The territory com- 
prised hills and mountains, valleys and undulating 
plateaus, streams and lakes, with fine forests and a stock 
of the animals indigenous to the region, from black bear 
and deer to. squirrels and hares ; while the waters were 
already stocked with trout, or were waiting for the intro- 
duction of trout and bass. The park was in a veritable 
vi'ilderness, where slight attention was paid by the people 
to game laws or trespass laws; and the promoters of the 
enterprise believed that if they were to secure for them- 
selves the benefits of the preserve and were successfully to 
protect their own properties from trespass, together with 
the outlying territory of which they had leased the shoot- 
ing rights, they must make their own fish and game laws 
and provide their own special police to enforce them. 
They accordingly secured a charter empowering them to 
do this. The charter provides : 
"It may make its own game laws through its Board of 
Directors, and may add to, repeal or change the same ' 
from time to time. Such game laws shall- be applicable 
only to the land actually owned or leased by said corpora- 
tion, or to the territory over which they have obtained 
the right to shoot, fish or hunt." Provision is further 
made for game wardens appointed by the Association and 
deputized by the sheriff of Pike county. Penalties are 
provided for entering upon the land to shoot or fish, for 
killing deer and other game or fish. The penalties so 
prescribed are separate and distinct from those provided 
by the laws of the State relating to game and fish, and 
offenders are declared to be liable both to the special 
penalties and to those of the State law. 
Under the liberal provisions of its charter, the Bloom- 
ing Grove Park Association has been a law unto itself. 
It has fixed its own game and fish seasons, and has hunted 
deer with hounds, for example, in ways forbidden by the 
State. It has introduced game and fish, and in general 
conducted its preserve in a way calculated to give: its 
members good fishing and shooting. The special privileges 
accojided to it in the charter have been the subject of 
invidious comment, but there is reason to believe that 
without such authority to make and administer its own 
laws the Association could not have succeeded with its 
preserve. The people among whom the Blooming Grove 
Park was established were many of them as wild and 
itntamed in all that relates to hunting as the Pike county 
bears. Without its own police the Association would- 
have had serious diflficulty in protecting the territory, if, 
indeed, protectios would not have proved absolutely im^^ 
possible. 
Whatever may be the constitutional aspects of those sec- 
tions of the charter which empower th^ Blooming Qroy? 
Park Association to make its own open and close seasons 
and its fish and game laws, there can be no serious claim, 
we believe, that such special privileges are in force out- 
side of the club tetyitory. While the Association may 
kill game as it pleases, there is nothing in the charter to 
warrant its exportation of game in a manner contrary to 
the State law. 
We published last week a communication from a Bos- 
ton correspondent, in which it was told that Commissioner 
Collins of the Fish and Game Commission had personally 
visited between forty and fifty saw mills to insure that 
the owners should keep their sawdust out of the brooks, 
and we added a note commenting upon the activity of the 
Commission in this respect. This prompts another cor- 
respondent to point out that the work of keeping the 
trout streams free from pollution is only a portion of that 
which has been undertaken and carried , through by the 
Massachusetts Commission in their determination to in- 
crease the fish and game supply. In addition to the other 
work of the summer. Commissioner Collins has taken 
soundings and temperatures in twenty-one ponds and 
lakes, besides making a less careful examination of many 
others with reference to their fishery capabilities. The 
Commission has had built within the past two years six- 
teen new fishways, and has caused six or more fishways to 
be rebuilt. It is estimated that this has had the effect of 
increasing fully four times the possibilities for breeding 
and rearing fish. The fishways have been built under 
the special direction of the Commission, and Mr. Collins 
has personally examined the site for every one that has 
been built or rebuilt, or is to be built. It is a pleasure to 
chronicle such activity so intelligently directed. 
The autumn of 1901 to this writing has been remark- 
able for a succession of bright days, now run into weeks 
of perfect weather for outdoor life. There has been in- 
spiration in the air, in the sunlight, in the flaming foliage, 
in the purple haze of the distance. This period of delight- 
ful weather conditions has followed a breeding season 
which has been in many parts of the land exceedingly 
fruitful ; the game supply is almost everywhere abundant. 
Surely in this year of 1901 the man with the gun has little 
to complain of in game and weather conditions. Even 
the duck shooter, who is notoriously a rough-weather 
fowl, rejoicing when the Weather Bureau prognosticates 
the coming of a storm, has this year enjoyed good shoot- 
ing, even without the tempestuous accompaniments. On 
the uplands the continued mild weather has protracted the 
season of heavy cover, and this has in a measure made 
shooting difficult; but a heavy frost or two will correct 
this. 
The second series of Fred Mather's "Men I Have 
Fished With" has just issued from the press of the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Co., under the title "My 
z\ngling Friends." This title is simply to distinguish 
the second book from the first one. The chapters Mr. 
Mather wrote from week to week for Forest and Stream 
readers have by no means lost their freshness ; they are as 
readable, as overflowing with kindly humor and senti- 
ment, as fascinating and absorbing, to-day as ever. The 
volume will have a _place with the first one in many an 
angler's library. 
As an interesting side light on the antiquity of angling, . 
Mr. Charles Hallock cites the reference in Isaiah xix; 8, 
10, where the prophet, in foretelling the woes which are 
to fall upon the Egyptians, pictures these evil days for 
anglers : "The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that 
cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that 
spread nets upon the waters shall perish. . . . And 
they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make 
sluices and ponds for fish." From which it appears that 
the anglers of old had troubles of their own. 
Some cities have elections annually, others once in 
so o^ten; but with the coming of November every year 
without a break the Cincinnati Cuviers dine in annual 
banquet. The date this year will be Nov. 20. 
The map of the United States is dotted with names 
which have in them — if only we stopped to think of it — 
a reminder of the wild life of the old days. Mr. Ysxi. 
Ql^ef's interesting note§ 011 the Beavfr Kill are in po^iit, 
