Forest and Stream 
A W 
J 
EEKLY journal of the 
R 
OD AND 
G 
UN, 
Copyright, 1902, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2. ( 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1902. 
j VOL. LVIII.— No. 6. 
'/ No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium ofentertain- 
i,;ent, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
rages 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. 
FOREST RESERVES AS GAME REFUGES. 
The suggestion first made by the Forest and Stream: 
that the timber reserves of the West should be utilized 
also as game refuges, has always appealed very strongly 
to the fraternity of sportsmen and to all interested in the 
preservation of big game. When it is realized that civiliza- 
tion and settlement are absolutely destructive of natural 
conditions, the necessity that the killing of game shall 
absolutely cease over certain extensive areas becomes evi- 
dent, unless we are prepared to face the utter extermina- 
tion of all our more conspicuous wild creatures. 
One has only to read the old books to appreciate what a 
wealth of game this country once supported. When its 
only enemies were those of nature, the wild beasts and the 
savage man with his primitive equipment; when the 
game ranged everywhere from the narrow fringe of settle- 
ments along the Atlantic to the great unknown toward 
where the sun goes down, the annual increase exceeded 
the annual deaths, and there was food for all. 
Before the ever-increasing torrent of white settlers 
which soon began to sweep westward over the continent; 
the game melted away as the snow disappears before the 
warm spring rain. As this tide swelled, the percussion 
cap took the place of the old flint, then came the breech- 
loader and then the magazine gun — arms whose precision 
and rapidity of fire constantly increased. Thirty years 
ago the buffalo of the Southern herd were fast disappear- 
ing; twenty years ago they had long been gone, and the 
Northern herd had been greatly cut down. The next year 
that also disappeared. Thirty years ago, elk were found 
over all the prairie from the Missouri River westward; 
now. the elk is a dweller in the thick timber in a few 
places in the mountains, occurring in any numbers only 
in the neighborhood of the Yellowstone National Park, 
and there likely soon to disappear except within the Park. 
At its recent annual meeting in Washington the Boone 
and Crockett Club — a body of well-known sportsmen — 
took strong ground in favor of such action by the United 
States Government, as should preserve in the vast area 
of our timber reserves the remnants of our great game 
still found there. In these various forest reserves may 
be found — as we have already pointed out — all the diverse 
sorts of country and of climate required for our different 
species, and with proper protection for a time, and later 
with proper stocking, great herds of these animals, now 
so rapidly disappearing, may be preserved forever to fur- 
nish hunting to Americans for all time. 
In the Yellowstone National Park bears and elk and 
antelope and deer and mountain sheep have been preserved 
and have become common sights to the casual visitor to 
this beautiful region. How great the charm they add to 
it, the man or woman who has seen them there well 
knows. In that Park we have an admirable object lesson 
which furnishes strong reasons for the establishment of 
other refuges like this in the timber reserves. 
The timber reserves' are the property of the United 
States, and action looking toward their preservation must 
be taken by the Federal Government, and preferably with 
the co-operation of the authorities of the State or States 
in which the reserves may lie. If the Government owns 
the land, it would seem that it must own also whatever is 
upon the land; that it may protect the timber and the 
game as it protects the property which it owns on any 
other Government reservation. This ground was taken 
years ago in "American Big Game Hunting," the first of 
the volumes of the Boone and Crockett Club. 
In his recent speech on the establishment of such 
game refuges, President Roosevelt gave an unanswerable 
and thoroughly American reason why Congress ought to 
enact laws furnishing protection to this game. The very 
rich may gain possession of vast areas of territory, which 
they may fence in and stock with game for their own 
pleasure, but this is something far beyond the means of 
the average man. In future years, .this average man must 
depend for his big-game hunting on game preserved by 
the Government ; whether of the State as in Maine, or of 
the United States as on the borders of the National Park, 
or on the borders of some of these forest reserves of the 
West. From such game refuges, if they are wisely ad- 
ministered, the big game will constantly stray forth, as 
to-day it wanders beyond the borders of the National 
Park, and will furnish for generations the opportunity 
for men to exercise those hardy and manly qualities which, 
up to the present time, have been characteristic of the 
American rifleman. This Government is a democracy 
.and looks for the greatest good of the greatest number. 
A democratic reason like that advanced by President 
Roosevelt must appeal to every American. 
Hon. John F. Lacey, of Iowa, to whose intelligence and 
energy the country owes first the law of 1894. which gave 
protection to the Yellowstone Park, and second the Lacey 
act, which has done so much for game protection in other 
respects, has taken hold of this subject of establishing 
game refuges in the timber reserves. It is understood that 
he is at work perfecting a bill with this end in view, which 
will soon be presented to Congress. It is an extremely 
encouraging fact that the Presidential chair is occupied 
by that good sportsman, Theodore Roosevelt, who has the 
matter of protection of great game as deeply at heart as 
any man in all the land. 
THE -ADIRONDACK FORESTS. 
Assemblyman Davis has introduced a bill in the New 
York Legislature, which embodies the recommendations 
of Governor Odell respecting the Forest Preserve. It 
proposes an amendment to the State Constitution to per- 
mit the cutting of timber in the Forest Preserve under 
such rules as may be prescribed by the Forest, Fish and 
Game Commission; to permit the leasing of lands on the 
Forest Preserve to the extent of two acres to each plot 
for camp sites. No lease is to run for more than twenty 
years, and the leased plot is to be within no. more than 
250 feet of any lake front. The leases are to be sold to 
the highest bidder, and do not carry with them exclusive 
shooting and fishing privileges. 
These are proposals which contemplate a radical change 
of conditions now governing in the Adirondacks, and they 
should have most careful and deliberate consideration. 
Grave objections to the scheme will at once present them- 
>elves. 
In the first place, it is proposed to take away from the 
Adirondack Forest Preserve the safeguard which the peo- 
ple of New York put upon it with such an overwhelming 
vote. That safeguard lies in the absolute protection of 
the public forests from the axe. The Davis bill would 
substitute for this a new system of cutting by lumber- 
men subject only to such rules as the Commission might 
make. 
We believe that the people of New York are not ready 
to assent to any such dangerous proposition as that. We 
have advocated, and others have advocated, the provision 
of a rightly planned, organized and equipped scheme of 
scientific forest administration for the North Woods; but 
that would be a very different thing from this putting in 
the lumbermen to cut under the direction of the Forest 
Commission. We never have had. have not now, and are 
not likely soon to have in New York, a forest commis- 
sion made up of trained foresters. We say this with no 
disrespect to the present Commissioners ; but it needs to 
be said that no one who is not a trained forester could 
wisely be entrusted with the direction of lumbering on 
State lands. In fact, there should never be lumbering on 
State lands by private lumbermen. If Adirondack Forest 
Reserve trees ever are cut they should be cut by a State 
forester, who will work for the State's interest, and not 
by private lumbermen who will work for their own in- 
terests. 
Until we can have in New York the organization of a 
State forestry service, the only safe rule will be to keep 
the forests intact. 
A Rochester correspondent is moved by newspaper re- 
ports of prodigious slaughter of wildfowl to renew the 
suggestion of territories to be set apart by the Govern- 
ment for wildfowl refuges. It will be remembered that the 
plan was proposed by Dr. .Willard G. Van Name in the 
Forest and Stream a year or two ago, and has been ad- 
vocated by its author with convincing argument. The 
one thing which stands in the way of national intervention 
is the lack of authority. Congress has no power to regu- 
late the killing of game in the several States, nor has it 
territory which it could protect, nor is there much prob- 
ability that such territory could be acquired for the 
purpose. The simpler and more feasible plan would be 
the reservation of lands and waters by the State. This 
system is now in operation in Connecticut, where the 
establishment of game preserves was authorized by the 
last Legislature. While the remedy pointed out by our 
correspondent may not be provided, there is no room to 
question that this abuse of big bags of game has been 
lessened and will be lessened by a growing popular dis- 
approval. We are governed in our sports as in other 
activities by the conventionalities. In the years of game 
plenty, when there was game sufficient for all, the big 
bag was generally regarded as legitimate; and this con- 
ventional view largely determined individual attitude and 
action. In like manner, now that the game supply has 
decreased and excessive killing by the single gun is 
recognized as folly, the conventional attitude is one of 
deprecation, and by this in turn, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, the individual is controlled. Duck shooters are 
not going on to make big bags to boast of unless the 
boasting shall be approved by their audiences. The power 
of public opinion will be potent here as in most other 
things. Popular disapproval of big bags of game will 
surely prove a powerful factor in compelling moderation. 
At 12 o'clock noon of Sunday, Feb. 2, the ground hogs 
of New England and the Middle States carefully ap- 
proached the mouths of their respective holes. Consider- 
able water was trickling into the openings and most of 
them got their feet wet. Precisely at the meridian hour 
each ground hog emerged from his burrow, sat up straight 
in the pelting rain and carefully looked about, to see if 
in any direction his shadow might be visible. Not one of 
all the gray and furry company was able to detect his, and. 
damp and shivering, all of them withdrew again to bur- 
rows and nests, where they curled themselves up for a 
further sleep. This, .then, is the first sign of spring, for, 
as we all know, on that day, 
If the ground-hog sees his shadow in the sun, 
Six weeks of winter will have begun, 
and no doubt the converse is true, that if the ground 
hog fails to see his shadow in the sun, the back of the 
winter is broken and milder weather is at hand. 
That same Sunday was, according to our English an- 
cestors, Candlemas day, of which they said: 
If Candlemas day be fair and bright, 
Winter will take another flight. 
If Candlemas day bring showers and rain, 
Winter is gone and will not come again. 
On either saying we hail the approach of balmy spring — 
that season which all love, no matter how much they may 
dread its poets. 
»? 
Warren Hapgood, one of the oldest and best kno.wn 
sportsmen of Boston, died on Jan. 30. Mr. Hapgood 
was an enthusiastic wildfowler, and a student of the ways 
of the shore birds; and had a vast fund of information 
in this field. He was a frequent contributor to the 
Forest and Stream ; two of the chapters in the pamphlet 
"Shore Birds" were from his pen. In an early issue we 
shall print a notice of Mr. Hapgood's life, written by a 
friend of years' standing. 
K 
One of the most interesting points in the Massachusetts 
Fish and Game Commission report is that which records 
what may fairly be regarded as the re-establishment 
of deer in various parts of the State. In connection with 
the report should be read the letter by Mr. Robert O. 
Morris, in the Springfield Republican, which gives much 
Massachusetts deer lore. W r hat has taken place in Ver- 
mont and Massachusetts and Connecticut with their new 
deer stock goes to show that we may have game if we 
care to provide for it. 
Among the recommendations made by the New York 
Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission are these: That 
the Constitution shall be amended to provide for a system 
of scientific conservative forestry on the State Forest 
Preserve; that camp sites in the Preserve shall be leased; 
that spring shooting of wildfowl shall be abolished 
throughout the State; that non-resident sportsmen shall 
be taxed $50; and that guides shall be licensed. 
K 
Dr. James R. Romeyn of Keeseville, N. Y„ died on 
Jan. 26 at the age of seventy-seven. Dr. Romeyn was one 
of the most widely known of Adirondack fishermen; hq 
gave his name to the Romeyn trout fly, ; _ 
