104 
of the larger trees, it is itself in time choked out of ex- 
istence, and a mass of gnarly, knotty short trunks of the 
larger trees only is left. So far the study of forestry in 
this side of the world has been quite the reverse of prac- 
tical, and the basis of it has been experience of other 
countries where the conditions are almost entirely dif- 
ferent. We must have a native school of forestry kept 
in the forests for some years at least, before we can make 
rules exactly suited for our special conditions, and one 
of these conditions must be the adaptation of methods to 
natural laws derived from existing facts. 
Henry Stewart. 
Highlands, N. C. 
The Adirondack Park* 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The article on "The Adirondack Forests," by W. E. 
Wolcott, is well received by quite a number who are not 
likely to' be heard from in print. It is a timely encourage- 
ment to some of us who watch uneasily the continual eat- 
ing into the forest of the lumbered and burned tracts, 
often one and inseparable. And the editorial comment 
intimating that possibly it is not yet time to let in the 
lumberman is also encouragkig. I am one of those who 
believe in making use of the ripe crop, and that ultimately 
it can be saved without injury to the forest, but I more 
earnestly believe that the attempt to do any harvesting 
now will lead to irreparable injury without even tempor- 
ary net returns. This is the opinion of several men who 
know much about the management of affairs in the woods 
and outside. Some of the big spruces may be ripe, but 
the time for selling them with safety is not, and it will 
not be until nearly all the unlumbered forest belongs to 
the State. 
Forest and Stream, if I remember rightly, has always 
held that the mere carcass equivalent of the animal is of 
little account when properly estimating the value of the 
game to the people, and I can hardly believe that the 
forest will be valued on the basis of the pulp wood it can 
supply. Within the Adirondack Park lies the only pri- 
mitive woodland or refuge of game that the great ma- 
jority of us will ever see. The wild game may belong to 
the people, but if it has no place to lay its head will not 
for long be a tangible possession. A glimpse of one wild 
deer disappearing over the unmapped mountain is worth 
a long gaze at two through the meshes of a woven wire 
fence. Fences and preserved grounds are to-day certain- 
ly necessary and desirable; but if the people can afford 
to assure to any individual an exclusive pleasure ground, 
cannot they afford to purchase one for all, and to keep it 
attractive even at the expense of many logs uncut? A 
part is surely not worth more consideration than is the 
whole. 
Several of my friends who voted against the proposed 
constitutional amendment in 1896, because of the proposi- 
tion to lease camp and hotel sites, are still in the same 
mood. They believe that in practice the leasing of sites 
would be no exception to the general rule that the most 
desirable things will inevitably go to the bidder with the 
most money. They believe that somebody wanted to 
qualify under the ruling or the proposition would not 
have been made. They believe that soon all the desirable 
sites would be permanently, occupied, and should they 
want to camp for their week or two they would follow up 
a row of " move along" orders, unless they took at once 
to the swamps and punkies. They believe that the most 
commanding sites on the shore of every beautiful lake 
would soon be illuminated by the glaring paint of a barn- 
like hotel. 
While I do not entirely agree^ with all of their ideas 
concerning the leasing of camp sites, it seems to me that 
any premature action would be an injury, and that leas- 
ing is certainly unnecessary at present. Three are hun- 
dreds of unoccupied lots now in the open market, once 
as good as sites now protected by the constitution. At 
the present time it is possible for one to see a few moun- 
tain lakes in their nearly primitive beauty as well as many 
others with a fringe of gaudily painted cottages and boat 
houses. After they have all been exploited there will 
never again be the possibility of choice. A few guides 
have a notion that more employment would come with 
more summer cottages. Possibly it may in the matter of 
cutting stovewood and mowing lawns, but for guides the 
demand would be more permanent in the wilderness than 
among a network of trolley lines and plank walks. 
Most of my friends are not rich men, and they like to 
spend their fortnight's vacation under the trees. They 
assume, perhaps wrongly, that it is the rich who would 
lease all the choice locations, and they feel that so far as 
•new privileges by law are concerned the interests of men 
like themselves should be considered before those of men 
who can picnic in Africa or Alaska when only bare rocks 
remain here. In the welfare of the pulp mills they have 
little interest, instead a lurking antagonism exists. They 
see the woods now going very fast close up- to the lots 
which belong to the State, and it is said even across the 
lines. Some of them, uncertain as to what may be the 
best management, feel that if the State fails to cut mature 
trees and finds itself in error it may lose the value of 
some lumber — a temporary loss, but that if lumbering 
begins now and is found a mistake they may lose the 
beauty of the forest for life. They prefer the lesser evil. 
With a few of us, hunting and fishing is a very second- 
ary consideration, although the wild life of the woods is 
the chief interest there found. The love of the woods, as 
of the open air generally, has been the great help to my 
wife in living down the dread tuberculosis, a fight which 
she has won. The chief attraction of the forest to her 
lies in the big trees. These are her continual delight. 
The second growth is not satisfactory, nor the culled 
timber. Many other good women are of the same mind. 
They can't vote to save the old woods, but would like to 
have a chance. 
In the " North Woods" we have been on the trails of 
some of the old-time woods lovers, of Nessmuck and Fred 
Mather. They are cold trails now, but I rejoice to say 
not entirely destroyed, though on some of their camping 
spots big hotels stand. It is our hope that the lumber- 
men will not get a chance for a good many years to file 
their saws where every old camp has been. 
David Carl. 
FOREST AND . STREAM. 
The Wild Horse. 
What has become of the wild horse? 
I remember that the school geography that we used in 
my youth had a picture of a scene in Texas, the principal 
feature in which was two men catching wild horses ; one 
of them had thrown his lariat over the head of his victim, 
and was pulling it to the ground, while the other man in 
the distance was in full pursuit of his game. 
In our school reader, too, was a very spirited account of 
"Ringing the Wild Horse," by Washington Irving. I 
have since discovered that the account was taken from 
Irving's "Tour on the Prairies," in his "Crayon Mis- 
cellany." In this book are frequent notices of the wild 
horses, and one gets the impression that they were very 
common on the prairies in the Far West. "The wild 
horses," he says, "which range those vast grassy plains, 
extending from the Arkansas to the Spanish settlements, 
are of various forms and colors, betraying their various 
descents. Some resemble the common English stock, and 
are probably descended from horses which have escaped 
from our border settlements. Others are of a low, but 
strong, make, and are supposed to be of the Andalusian 
breed, brought over by the Spanish discoverers." 
Of all the writers on our early Western country, I think 
Irving is still easily the first in point of merit. His 
"Prairie Tour," his "Bonneville" and his "Astoria" have 
not been equalled in vivacity and interest. Those who 
know Irving only from his heavier works, his life of 
Mohammet, of Columbus and of Washington, or from his 
books at the other extreme, his Knickerbocker, his Sketch 
Book or his Bracebridge Hall, should read his sketches 
of our Western country when St. Louis was a frontier 
town, and the point of departure for those who sought 
to explore the great wilderness beyond. Those were the 
days when it was thought the Great American desert 
could be traversed only by camels, and when Thomas 
Jefferson, in a message to Congress, could gravely speak 
of "a salt mountain" up the Missouri, "one hundred and 
eighty miles long and forty-five in width, composed of 
solid rock salt, without any trees or even shrubs on it." 
But to get back to our wild horses. 
Not only were they found on our Western plains, but 
they were reported, even in very early times, to abound 
in parts of Europe. Herodotus says that in the northern 
part of Thrace, beyond the Danube, the wild horses were 
covered with hair five inches in length. Smellie, in his 
"Philosophy of Natural History," an excellent old book 
by the way, quotes from the "History of the Buccaneers" 
to the effect that troops of horses, sometimes consisting of 
500, are frequently met with in the Island of St. Domingo ; 
that, when they see a man, they all stop, and that one 
of their number approaches to a certain distance, blows 
through his nostrils, takes flight, and is instantly followed 
by the whole troop. 
Readers of Byron will remember that the wild horses 
of the Russian steppes had something to do with Mazeppa 
in his fearful ride across the waste. 
"A trampling troop; I see them come! 
In one vast squadron they advance! 
I strove to cuss — my lips were dumb. 
The steeds rush on in plunging pride; 
But where are they the reins to guide? 
A thousand horse — and none to ride! 
With flowing tail and flying mane, 
Wide nostrils, never stretched by pain, 
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein, 
And feet that iron never shod, 
And flanks unscarr'd by spur or rod, 
A thousand horse, the wild, the free, 
Like waves that follow o'er the sea." 
But what has become of the wild horse ?_ In no modern 
book have I been able to find any mention of him. I 
have just turned over the leaves of the latest geography 
book out, but I find no picture of that untrammeled steed 
and no notice of him whatever. Has he joined the pro- 
cession with the buffalo, the wild pigeon, and the rest of 
them, and disappeared from the earth? 
T. J. Chapman. 
Concerning the Adirondack Forests. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have noted with interest what the Governor has sug- 
gested concerning further cutting on State lands. 
Also the talk about scientific forestry, and while not 
positively sure that there is nothing good in it for the 
State, Lam very skeptical. 
Such reports as are available concerning the so-called 
scientific forestry suggests that the science consists more 
in getting funds for a college than for a building up of the 
State's Forest Reserve. 
For years I have been a close observer of the ordinary 
methods of lumbering in that region, and am prepared 
to indorse the statement of a thorough lumberman who 
said : " For every tree cut and hauled to market three 
more are spoiled and wasted." There seems to be a great 
desire that acid factories shall not get the " hard wood." 
The odds as between the acid factories and the pulp mills 
are fifty to one in favor of the acid factories. You can 
travel for miles through the Adriondacks without finding 
a spruce tree of average size, or a pine, and hardly a hem- 
lock, and travel constantly, too, through hardwood 
growth. By all means prohibit the furnishing of hard- 
wood from the State Preserve, but be ten times as jealous 
of the everlasting encroachments of the pulp mills. 
The removal of the black growth timber has very sen- 
sibly diminished the flow of brooks in a region still well 
timbered with hardwood, and it seems certain that the 
removal of that would not only denude the mountains 
of tree growth, but also, and shortly, of soil. For the 
soil is only held to the rocky foundation by interlacing 
tree roots, which roots feed and sustain the shading 
branches, preventing rapid evaporation, and compel a 
mild and steady flow from the sponge-like soil. 
Granite peaks may be all right in Switzerland where 
the everlasting snows prohibit vegetable growth. But if 
the peaks of the Adirondacks are robbed of their crown 
of green, instead of remaining the "health resort and 
pleasure ground of the nation " it will become " an abom- 
ination of desolation." As to scientific forestry, that is 
iF" S8. 8, t0M. 
very well if it be scientific forestry. But it is greatly to 
be feared that it is forestry " for revenue only." 
It was not, be it remembered, that kind of forestry that 
made these forests. They got along very, well for thou- 
sands of years before this State existed or Cornell was 
chartered. It would seem not unreasonable to believe 
that the good God, who made the original forest, could 
still manage to preserve it without scientific aid. The 
" joker" in all this matter, is the pecuniary profit that 
somebody expects to get out of it. And surely the Em- 
pire State is not so poor that it can't have a little bit of 
unscientific nature left in it somewhere. 
The forests, I am persuaded, can still safely be left 
alone. As to the proposed suggestion of the Governor 
and the Adirondack Guides' Association concerning the 
leasing of camp sites, by all means let this be done, only 
with the proviso that the income from this source shall 
support a force of fire and game wardens large enough to 
make sure that the campers do not fire the forests, and 
do observe the laws. Wardens are rarer in that country 1 
than policemen are in this city when needed. 
In the present state of affairs I am clearly of opinion 
that till the experiment of Cornell can be shown to be 
much more successful than it has yet appeared to be in 
the matter of re-foresting, the present restrictions as to 1 
cutting timber should be rigidly enforced, and that leas- 
ing of camp sites should have a clause that would render 
liable for damage lessees who started a forest fire. 
Probably not one in ten persons who visit that region 
know that in a dry time the soil on which they kindle 
fires will burn like tinder. I have personally extinguished 
a fire which came from the fact that those who started it, ' 
though educated people, were ignorant of this fact — a 
fire which, had it not been checked at the opportune time, 
would probably have swept over thousands of acres of 
•what is now, and what I hope will remain for years to 
come, green woods. D. A. Jordan. 
Brooklyn, Jan. 30, 
Labrador Duck and Great Auk Eggs 
In the bequest of his valuable collection of birds' eggs 
to the Natural History Museum of London by Mr. Philip 
Crowley, two great rarities passed to that institution. 
One of these is an egg of the great auk, and the other 
that of the Labrador duck. Both these came into the 
hands of Mr. Crowley on his acquisition of Canon 
Tristram's fine collection of eggs. The Crowley great auk's 
egg was purchased in the year 1853 for £35, while last 
last year a very fine specimen brought 315 guineas. It is 
stated that the additions by this bequest to the collections 
of the Natural History Museum have increased their eggs 
nearly a third in numbers, and about 15 per cent, in 
species represented. 
Ways of the Gadwall. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I am very greatly indebted to the friends and un- 
known sportsmen whom I quote below for their kind- 
ness in responding so promply and fully to my inquiry 
as to the manners of the gadwall duck. I am also obliged 
to you for your kindness in turning over to me the vari- 
ous notes which you have received on this subject, in 
order that I may bring them all together under a single 
head. 
My friend Mr. Chas. P. Frame, of this city, whose ex- 
perience in duck shooting covers a wide range, from 
Canada to the Southern States, and over much of the" 
East and West, writes me something as to the abun- 
dance of the gadwall in recent times and their relative 
numbers. He says: "One day in 1900 in South Dakota 
I killed nearly eighty ducks from 10 o'clock till 4, hav- 
ing some twenty decoys tied out. Over half my bag were 
gadwalls. 
"I have seen more gadwalls in South than in North 
Dakota. My shooting in the former State has been in 
the northern, part, in counties adjoining North Dakota. 
In North Dakota I met with more mallards than others; 
next came blue-winged teal in the early part of the 
season, and green-wings later. Sprigs, redheads and j 
widgeons were about the same as to numbers. Then 
follow the gadwalls and shovelers, and of these two 
species there were not so many." 
Mr. Jos. B. Thompson, of this city, whose name is 
familiar to all students of game law matters, writes : 
"A quarter of a century or so ago-, when hunting in 
the Mississippi Valley was better than it now is, this 
duck was abundant at times; and it would decoy fairly 
well. At times, however, it would not do so at all. Why 
this was so is not clear to me. I think it was due to ) 
food conditions. When food was. plentiful it was not 
easy to decoy; when it was scarce its disposition was 
different. Mallard or widgeon decoys I found satisfac- 
tory. 
"In later years, in. hunting on the Pacific coast, par- 
ticularly from San Francisco north, I have found these 
birds plentiful only occasionally; but I think they de- 
coyed just about as well as mallards. When artificial ' 
feeding was practiced they came in well whenever they 
were around. I have frequently shot them over mallard 
decoys, but I have never found them in such numbers 
as those ducks. I think they are growing scarcer." 
Mr. O. D. Foulkes, of Stockton, Md., tells something 
of his experience with this bird on the Eastern Shore. 
It is interesting to know that an old English name i,s still 
applied here to the species. Mr. Foulkes says: 
"Any variety of fowl will decoy if you have your de- 
coys placed just where they wish to feed. 
"My experience with the gadwall {Anas strepera), 
called here the bl'atin' duck — a corruption of bleating — 1 
is that it is one of the poorest of the pond ducks to 
come to decoys. There have been so few of them here 
for the last ten years that it would be hard to say what 
they would do now. In years gone by they were very 
plentiful here, feeding in the small ponds with which the 
islands and marshes are dotted. 
"They were killed in this way: A pond was found in 1 
