March 22, 1902.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
£8 
In this latter instance the Forest Commission fl«>vfed 
itself an unfit and unsafe custodian of the interests o* the 
.State with reference to the Forest preserve and no ex- 
planations can in any dfcgree excuse their failure to dis- 
cern the public will. If was another deliberate attempt 
to defy the public will and 1 deceive the people, but jt failed 
so to do. It has been said above that no opposition was 
made in the Legislature to 1 this amendment. That is true. 
The question of making opposition was considered and 
decided in the negative fox the express purpose of leav- 
ing the Legislature to act upon its own judgment or as 
it might be influenced by the Forest Commission, and 
thus to test the safety and iVosdom of confiding the inter- 
ests of the forests in the care of the Legislature and the 
Commission. This test proved the fact that the Forest 
Commission did not protect the forests, that the Legisla- 
ture confided too much in the Commission, that the State 
officials were powerless or too willing to aid the ever 
active forces -of forest destruction, and that to the people 
alone could be confided the protection of their interests in 
this respect as now provided in the Constitution. 
Referring more particularly to the proposed constitu- 
tional amendment, Assembly 'No. 646, introduced by Mr. 
'G. Davis, and those with similar provisions introduced by 
Senator Brown, Senate No. 159, and Senate No. 389, your 
attention is respectfully called to some of the provisions 
■proposed by them, the opening up of the State forest 
•preserve for the cutting of its timber by a system of 
'"scientific" forestry, and the leasing of camp sites not to 
(exceed two acres in extent, such leases not to be made 
for a longer period than twenty yiears, nor to cover more 
than two hundred and fifty feet otf shore line 01a any lake 
■or river. Another feature of this leasing is that mo more 
ifhan one,-half of such shore shall be leased. 
This leasing of sites carries with it the certainty that 
'the choicest situations of the State forest preserve would 
be selected by the lessees, thereby excluding the public 
from the enjoyment of the advantages they afford. The 
chores of the lakes, ponds and other water fronts thus 
: rented would in time be stripped of their timber to 
: supply the various wants created by the circumstances 
■ of occupancy. Footpaths, avenues and roads would be 
>cut through the surrounding forests, opening their re- 
■ cesses to the torrid heats of summer and the assaults of 
■ the winter storms. Such a removal of the trees would 
; result finally in the exposure of these sites to the destruc- 
tive forces of the elements, despoil them of their pic- 
turesque beauty, impair their healthfulness and destroy 
i their economical usefulness as woodlands. 
Once fully inaugurated, the effect of this system of 
leasing could be anticipated. Shorn of those natural fea- 
tures that had formerly made them attractive and valu- 
able, these sites would be abandoned one after another 
;for more desirable regions, and disfigurement or ruin 
would mark its workings throughout the fairest sections 
of the State preserve. 
In addition to these evils are those greater ones due to 
fire. With their many and necessary uses of fire for 
ihousehold purposes, these camps and cottages occupying 
trie sites would be a constant menace to the integrity of 
tthe adjacent woods. The dangers from such a source 
would be multiplied from their being occupied by the 
itessees during the very period when the forests are the 
flilryest and, therefore, more liable to be ravaged by this 
(dread scourge. Owing to the combustible nature of the 
material composing them from long seasoning, these 
ipremises when not occupied or deserted would still be ex- 
tremely hazardous. 
Eviery ,«rte~thus occupied would increase the probability 
<of tihe visitation of this destructive agent. Should these 
forests in .a season of continued drought be ravaged by 
such deplorable fires as those that devastated . the North- 
west, it would be not only a State, but a National calam- 
ity, considering the relation which this State bears to the 
irest of the Union. 
A catastrophe of this character could not fail to strike 
-a mortal blow at some of the industries that have given 
■to this Commonwealth in the past, and that give to it now 
its commanding mercantile position. Not only this, but 
;the necessity of developing others, if that were possible, 
to conform to the new conditions imposed upon her 
by their destruction, would arise. What is more serious 
still, this would occur at any time when competition 
between the most advanced nations and communities has 
not only reached a stage unprecedented in the history ^ of 
the commercial world, but must grow more severe, owing 
,io the progressive, intelligent and forceful character of 
, all those now engaged in the direction and development 
b of this mercantile rivalry. In the face of conditions that 
. would be so adverse, and with those in prospect, to 
1 create and invite evils so far reaching and momentous in 
1 their influences upon the welfare of the State, would be 
(to adopt and pursue a policy the folly of which would be 
I in keeping with the magnitude and importance of the in- 
iterests involved. 
Another provision of this proposed amendment is one 
(that specifically on one hand forbids the extension of 
steam railroads into the forest preserve of the State, but 
am the other covertly provides for its invasion by horse 
car, trolley, jsleetrical or other road. The introduction 
of such methods of travel in this wilderness would be the 
beginning of not only its own destruction, but of those 
various interests the protection of which depend in a 
large degree upon its preservation. 
Pierced and traversed in every possible direction, as it 
would be in a few years, by these thoroughfares, it would 
be opened on every side to the destructive attacks and the 
disastrous effects of the wind slash. On such occasions, 
forced through the mountain gorges and defiles with the 
tornado's irresistible power, the winds would enter by 
these breaches made in the forests, and instantly level 
and destroy acres of woodland. In a few seasons this 
dead timber, dry as tinder, would be in a fit condition to 
be fired from various sources. Once swept by fire such 
regions would be worthless thereafter as water con- 
. servers. 'I , ! 
In regard to the opening up of the State forests again 
for the purpose, among others, of cutting their timber 
according to a system of "scientific" forestry, even if they 
-were in a condition to be lumbered, it is fraught with dan- 
ger, at the present time, to ail those interests which, in 
-, no small measure, they safeguard. Moreover, it is the 
■ opinion commonly entertained on this subject that if it 
bad not been for the application of the exceptional and 
drastic provision of the present Constitution, whose essen- 
tial elements it is proposed , to repeal, there would be 
scarcely anything now left of the State forests worth 
legislating for. 
Should, however, this protective provision be so. altered 
as to permit the cutting of timber in the wooded reliefs 
of the State forest preserve by some system of. "scientific" 
forestry, about which so much is said. and so little under- 
stood, this much is certain : It will revive again and en- 
courage into active co-operation those individual and cor- 
porate agencies by which it had been, formerly despoiled 
and systematically plundered.* It is for the representa- 
tives of the people to decide how these interests shall 
weigh as against those of the community, some of the 
most vital ones of which depend altogether upon . these 
wooded regions as conservers of water. 
Viewed from this point, the position in which this 
State stands to her internal economy is an exceptional one 
among her sister States^ The farm products of the 
great agricultural States of the Mississippi Valley have 
the whole world for their market. On, the contrary, the 
farm products of our own State are almost entirely de- 
pendent upon her own markets created by her manu- 
facturing industries, and those due to her canals along 
which has risen an unbroken chain of cities which for 
population and the value of industries centered , in them 
are not equalled by those of any other section of our 
country. 
In connection with this subject of water supply, it is to 
be observed that but a few years ago the water horse- 
power used in this State by her various industries was 
more than that used by any other, or about one-fifth of 
j all used in the entire Union. The importance of this sub- 
ject is further emphasized by, the fact that more than one- 
half of its water is furnished to the canal system by the 
watersheds of the Adirondack wilderness, and by the 
necessity which has arisen for improving her waterways 
to maintain that supremacy which has justified her title 
of . the Empire State. 
The subject of a sufficient supply of water for the 
countless uses which our modern life demands is an alL 
important one, and concerns not only the great and ever 
increasing centers of population, but every hamlet of the 
State. Such are its intimate relations to our forests that 
your attention. is also respectfully called to a few of the 
many facts bearing upon it. 
In some of our cities the serious inconveniences and 
even dangers arising from an insufficient supply of water 
t are being fully realized- Already fears are expressed by 
those whose judgment on this question is worthy of our 
most serious consideration. Our rivers and their tribu- 
taries are diminishing in volume and flow. _ Many of their 
feeders, the brooks and streams, exist only in the memory, 
having entirely disappeared. The advance of the salt and 
the retreat of the fresh water in the Hudson River, the 
increasing exposure of the shores of Lake George, Lake 
Champlain, Raquette and other lakes of our State, by the 
' lowering of their waters from the destruction of our 
forests, are matters of common knowledge. 
This question of a water supply is one_ whose importance 
is borne in upon our attention with an irresistible and im- 
pressive force by a passing study of the increase in popu- 
lation of New York city proper in the last century. Start- 
ing in 1800 with 60,000 inhabitants, the increase has been 
equal to an average gain every decade of about 44 per 
cent. ; while in the last five decades Brooklyn has sur- 
passed this in her average growth. 
But assuming that the average increase each decade of 
the metropolitan district will be but 30 per cent., an 
annual increase of only about 3 per cent., her population 
in 1920 would reach 6\ooo,ooo; and there are thousands 
now living who will in 1950 see this metropolis containing 
13,000,000 people, or about twice the size of the present 
population* of the whole State. 
Again, the Greater New York is, and must continue to 
be, the greatest manufacturing center of the country, and 
her consumption of water, therefore, will be much greater 
per head than it would be otherwise. Placing this at 
the low figure of .150 gallons a day per capita in 1920, and 
180 gallons in 1950, the city would require at, the former 
period 900,000,000 gallons and half a century hence 
2,340,000,000 gallons a day. 
The daily use of such enormous volumes of water in 
the approximate future raises at once the question as to 
their sources and the means by which they are to be 
furnished. 
To these everlasting hills of the Cafskills and Adiron- 
dacks which seem to have been upreared by ah omnipo- 
tent and creative hand for this beneficent purpose, and_ to 
the forests, clothing their uplands and height's, and which 
alone can draw from the inexhaustible reservoirs of the 
clouds the full bounty of their life-giving springs, we must 
turn for the solution of this problem and its kindred ones. 
If the health and prosperity of the Commonwealth are to 
be assured, this priceless heritage of our wooded reliefs 
must be jealously guarded. 
The people" having already twice shown at the .polls by ' 
overwhelming vote what their desires are in relation to 
the forests, it remains for you, gentlemen of the legisla- 
tive body, to consider not how many cubic feet of timber, 
but how many cubic feet of water these forests may be 
made to yield. 
Respectfully submitted, 
Edmund P. Martin, Chairman* 
John H. Washburn, 
Edwin S. Marston, 
Peter F. Schofield, 1 
" ; Henry S. Harper, 1 ^. 
Committee on Forestry of the New YorlE 
Board of Trade and Transportation, 
* See Annual Report of the Comptroller' of the State for 1895. 
- — • ' . 
Taste of Flesh Affected by; Food* 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In your editorial in issue of March 15 on "Game Foods 
and Flavors," you ask, "Who knows whether the flesh 
of deer and elk may not be similarly affected by this or 
some other plant." .While I know nothing of elk, I can 
state positively that .the flesh of deer often, and I think 
always, partakes in spring of the taste of cedar which, 
here, is their principal food at this season. I well re- 
member how deer meat .used to taste in March when I 
' was„a boy, and the Indians used to bring it to' lis. I- 
have' often eaten moose meat in the spring, but have 
never seen that it was in any way affected by their food. 
Our white hares always taste strongly -of cedar (white 
cedar, Arbor vita;) toward spring. Ruffed grouse' feed 
mostly on willow and poplar buds after the. show comes, 
and their flesh in spring tastes strongly of what they 
feed on. Spruce grouse feed mostly on needles of fir, 
and I have yet to see one which did not taste strongly 
of the food even early in September, at which time they 
occasionally eat a few berries ; although I have several 
times watched them make a whole meal of fir needles 
close to my camp-fire when they could, get plenty of 
other food if they preferred it.- This taste can be removed 
by soaking the flesh in salt and' water. 
As said in the article referred to, beaver in spring taste 
very strongly of poplar. A young porcupine taken when 
feeding on beechnuts has no strong taste, but an old 
one taken in winter when feeding on hemlock is a differ- 
ent proposition. I once heard a man who had eaten one 
remark, "If it was not for the name of porcupine I 
would as soon eat a piece of hemlock bark." I have 
noticed in the falls, when bears fed on berries,, the fat 
would cool like lard, but when feeding on beechnuts, it 
was oil and. would never harden. The meat of seal tastes 
so strongly of fish that one not accustomed to it would 
go hungry a long time before trying it a second time. 
Manly Hardy. 
Brewer, Me 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I am interested in the editorial published in your last 
issue, entitled "Game Foods and Flavors," and while I 
cannot contribute to the subject anything that is new, 
there are two sufficiently^ familiar facts with regard to 
our Western grouse, which you did not think it worth 
while to mention, but which perhaps should be recorded 
in this connection. 
Residents in the Rocky Mountains are familiar with 
the fact that during the late summer and early fall, when 
the blue grouse are well grown and are feeding on the 
fruit of a very small, low-growing, red huckleberry, that 
is found in the evergreen forests, the flavor of ; > the .birds- 
is so markedly delicious as to call forth frequent com- 
ment by those who eat them. I should not dare to say 
that the flavor of the birds is the* same as that of the 
berries on which they feed, but there is an undoubted 
connection between the flavor and the food. 
Hardly less familiar than this to people who have .occa- 
sion to travel over the sage prairies, is the. fact that the 
flesh of the young sage grouse, almost or quite up to the 
time when they are fully grown, is very well flavored and 
toothsome. ' Up to this time they are supposed to feed 
chiefly on insects and seeds; but as autumn draw.s on 
and the insect supply is cut off, they take more and 
more to feeding on the tops of the sage, and the flesh 
becomes unsavory, disagreeable and bitter. At that sea- 
son of the year, by many persons, they are not con- 
sidered fit for food. 
. All this, of course, is quite in line with the : familiar 
examples which you have cited, such as the excellent 
flafor of the canvasback from feeding on the valisneria, 
the fishy flavor of certain ducks which feed largely on 
shell fish and so on. In like, manner, I believe certain 
persons who raise poultry feed their ducks on celery 
tops with the idea of giving the flesh a good flavor. 
I .recall that a good many years ago, when there was a 
wild outburst of excitement about the artificial propaga- 
tion of trout, and every farmer who had . a brook on 
his place believed that the raising of these fish "oft'ered a 
short and easy road to affluence, there arose before long a 
cry concerning the unpleasant flavor, of -the pond-raised 
trout on the ground that their flesh tasted of the- "liver 
on which they were largely fed. . Colorado, 
Denver, March 15." . 
A New King Snake from Texas. 
Not long ago Mr. Arthur Erw'in Brown, the accom- 
plished director of the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, 
described from western Texas an extraordinary , new 
snake under the name. Coluber .sub ocularis. From the 
same locality — the Davis Mountains, Jeff Davis county, 
Texas—now comes another new snake of the genus 
Ophibolus — the group sometimes known as king snakes — 
which Mr. Brown has named. O. alternus. .This snake, 
which: is something over two feet long, is slaty gray in 
color, -crossed on the back by bands of black, which are 
alternately wider and narrower. The wider black bands 
are more or less divided transversely on their centers. with 
scarlet, but the alternate narrow ones are wholly black. 
There are nineteen of the red and black bands on the 
body, and an equal number of intermediate black ones 
showing no red. 
The snake described was received alive at the* Zoo- 
logical Gardens in Philadelphia from Mr. E. Meyenberg, 
one of Mr. Brown's collectors. 
Not Hunting but Game Keeping, 
President Roosevelt is beginning to chafe under the 
burdens, put upon him by the persistence of office seekers. 
When he was on his way to the launching of the Meteor 
:a friend remarked to him: \ : " 
- ."You* don't get much time for hunting now?" * 
a "No*" Said the President; "the fact is, I am a sort -pf 
. .gamekeeper now, watching the Government preserves 
while hordes of poachers are trying to break in and bag 
the offices." — New York Times, 
Hollow Trees. 
In Keuka's amusing story of a ferret •the' Detroit hotel 
man appears to be at once a good story-teller arid a bad 
observer. He describes a fallen tree thaShad lain so long 
that it had become hollow. ,$> -3 -•• 
Only green standing trees become -hollow. A hollow 
in a tree is produced by the outside growffrg while the 
inside decays. Dead and fallen trees rot first on the 
outside. R. R g. 
