Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1902, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1902. 
j VOL. LVIIi:— No. 20. 
} No. 346 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 
cages 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. 
SUBSCRIPTIONS. 
The date of expiration of your subscription is "given on the 
address label on the wrapper. A change of date on the 
address wrapper is equivalent to a receipt for money sent for 
subscription. Take note of the date on your address label. 
TO POPULARIZE NATURAL HISTORY. 
A meeting recently held in this city for the purpose of 
discussing the formation of a New York Naturalists' 
Club seems worthy of more than a mere passing mention. 
Rapid as the growth of interest in scientific matters has 
been within the past twenty-five years, it is still true that 
a majority of the public knows little and cares less about 
these topics. The reason for this is sufficiently obvious. 
Most scientific work is too technical and ordinarily is 
clad in a terminology which places it beyond the compre- 
hension of people who have not made some study of 
scientific matters. 
There is probably no man, woman or child of ordinary 
intelligence who would not admire and be interested in 
almost any natural object, if it were shown and its his- 
tory, characteristics and uses pointed out in plain and sinv 
pie language, readily to be comprehended. Yet a flower, a 
stone, a bone, or a bird, marked merely by an identifica- 
tion label giving its Latin name, has no meaning to the 
ordinary observer, arid excites only a passing interest. 
What the. average person is interested in is partly the . 
specifnen itself, but still more its relations to other ob- 
jects in the world in which we live. It is not difficult to 
imagine that a naturalists' club, formed for the purpose of 
giving people at large information which they can readily 
understand and which has for them a living interest, 
might become great power for good in any city, and 
might be the forerunner of a thousand other naturalists' 
clubs in cities and towns and villages all over the coun- 
try. The possibilities for good of such clubs are hardly 
to be estimated. Setting aside the vast amount of direct 
pleasure that they would give to their members, there 
is their tremendously broadening effect on the minds of 
young people, arid the furnishing to them subjects of 
direct and vivid interest, which will occupy their minds 
with profitable subjects for wholesome, pleasing thought, 
and in this way protect them from all sorts of tempta- 
tion to evil thinking and doing. There is no more whole- 
some interest for boy or girl than one which has to do 
with the objects of nature, found in the woods and fields, 
among the mountains and by the sea shore. How greatly 
this has come to be appreciated within the past few years 
i? shown by the flood of volumes having to do with sub-, 
jects of this kind which are constantly pouring from the 
publishers' presses. Stories of animals and birds and 
plants are as numerous and as familiar now as were the 
fairy books of twenty years ago, and as most of these 
books on natural history subjects contain a considerable 
measure of truth, they are far better stimulants to the 
imagination than was the literature of the early childhood 
of the man or woman of to-day. 
There are many scientific societies scattered over the 
country, but with almost all of them the trouble is that, 
by their name or by the form in which what they have to 
say is clothed,. they frighten people away, instead of at- 
tracting. A naturalists' club conducted on other lines 
need not do this. . Instead, it would attract a constantly 
increasing number of people, and even if it called together 
only those who read the natural history books and love 
to hear about the ways of the wild creatures of wood and 
swamp and stream, these would be enough to make up a 
very large membership. 
Mr. W. L. Sherwood is setting on foot the project for 
the New York Naturalists' Club, and he deserves much 
credit for the attempt in which we hope he may be suc- 
cessful. Such an association, making weekly journeys 
about New York, under the guidance of proper persons, 
would not fail in the course of time to have a large and 
enthusiastic following. 
In the establishing of any new project much enthusiasm, 
much patience and a certain amount of money are essen- 
tial, but we believe that a very moderate amount of 
labor — though, of course, a good deal of time — would be 
required to set on foot a naturalists' club which should be 
very successful. 
Everything, however, depends on the persons chosen 
to make known to the members of the club the history of 
the familiar objects which will be brought before them, 
and on the capacity to make such explanations interesting 
the success or failure of the enterprise will depend. 
FISHING TOGS. 
It has sapiently been said that "It is not all of fishing 
to fish," a pleasing form of negation which favorably ap- 
peals to any one's ready concurrence, since it leaves one 
free to supply the fanciful complementary parts in such 
kind, quantity and manner as best pleases himself. 
Thus is established the best fishing of the kind after one's 
own ideal. 
"All of fishing," beside the practical part of it, may 
include the innumerable fads, whims and idiosyncrasies of 
the individual. It affords a play for such peculiarities in 
a field whose atmosphere is one of boundless charms. 
Pursuit and capture, with an imagination active and 
untrammeled, have their own beautiful vistas extending 
from earth to sky. But the conditions must be har- 
monious. 
To secure the best conditions for the enjoyment of "all 
of fishing," the body must be comfortable and the mind 
entirely free from care. There must be no subconscious- 
ness of responsibility ; no feeling of vague discomfort ; no 
strain of mind importing that at every turn there is 
something or other concerning which one must have a 
care. Mind and body must be free and at rest. Calm 
contentment of the present, forgetfulness of the past and 
pleasant anticipations of the future, perfectly blended, 
make the proper conditions. 
How can such conditions be secured? Readily. One 
needs but to dress in one's old clothes and the thing is 
done. 
One is not forced to stand when one wishes to be 
seated as when wearing one's good clothes. 
Good clothes worn when fishing impose a thousand 
petty responsibilities. When in the panoply of one's old 
clothes, the rocks, the logs, the banks of streams, etc., all 
furnish comfortable places whereat to tarry, comfortably 
seated, and fish, or contemplate nature's wonders. If the 
old clothes are wet, or muddied, or torn, what matters it? 
If the old shoes let in water, it but adds so much more 
to their tenancy, and they are in any event exemplars of 
ease and comfort. 
Slimy fish, muddy logs, swampy ground, rough rocks, 
etc., are objects of unhappy contemplation to him whose 
clothes are his painful care, but they disturb not the mind 
of him who encases himself in the enchanted vesture of 
the true angler, the old clothes which have reached the 
age limit of active service in every-day life, but have only 
begun their true mission in the best service — fishing. 
The best fishing togs are those which have grown old 
and worn and mellowed in shade from long usage on the 
stream ; whose every rent and darn could a tale unfold of 
mishap and hardship and hazard in the fishing days of the 
past. An old coat becomes in time a veritable palimpsest 
in which the wearer's eye, enlightened by memory, may 
read a record of failures and successes, rewards and dis- 
appointments, and all the grateful story of his invasions of 
trout and bass and salmon haunts. 
Xew Jersey has taken its place once more with the 
States which require the non-resident shooter to take out 
a license. The fee is $io, and the requirement does not 
apply to the shooting of wild ducks and snipe. New 
Jersey was among the first to impose such a tax. For 
many years the West Jersey Game Protective Association, 
an institution with headquarters actually in Philadelphia 
and actually made up of Pennsylvania sportsmen, con- 
trolled the western counties of the State and rigorously 
exacted the tax. There was a time when the New 
Jersey law gave other game associations the right to col- 
lect from the unwary visitor, and in some instances scan- 
dalous systems of blackmail were put into operation. 
THE AMERICAN FUR TRADE. ■ 
SECOND PAPER. 
In April, 1808, John Jacob Astor secured from the State 
of New York a charter creating the American Fur Com- 
pany. His purpose was to establish trading posts on the 
northwest coast, to send out an annual ship from New 
York with supplies for that post, to ship the furs ob- 
tained to China, and, selling them there, to reload his ship 
with goods for the home market. In organizing his com- 
pany, Mr. Astor displayed his usual shrewdness, for he 
engaged in his service many men who had long been em- 
ployed in the Northwest Company, then the most suc- 
cessful of the northern trading companies. For the estab- 
lishment of this post Mr. Astor sent out two expeditions- 
one by land, under Mr. W. P. Hunt; the other by sea, in 
the ship Tonquin, under Captain Thorne. The fate of 
this vessel is well known, for every man aboard of it was 
lost, the Indians slaying most of them, and one of the 
white men, about whose name there is some uncertainty, 
finally blowing up the magazine and destroying most of 
the Indians. The land expedition was much more fortu- 
nate. Although meeting with many difficulties, it at 
length reached Astoria in several detachments, but with- 
out very serious losses. 
Before the arrival of the land party the traders who had 
been left by the Tonquin at Astoria were visited by a 
representative of the Northwest Fur Company, David 
Thompson, who claimed the country as their own, and 
formally raised the British flag. The Astorians were trou- 
bled by this, and learning not long after of the destruction 
of the Tonquin, and suspecting that the focal Indians were 
conspiring against them, David McDougal, one of the 
partners in the company, called together the Indian chiefs 
to give them a lesson. A few years before smallpox had 
appeared on the coast and decimated the Indians, who still 
remembered its ravages with terror. When the chiefs had 
come together, McDougal showed them a bottle, and in- 
formed them that it contained the smallpox, which he 
could let loose among them by drawing the cork. He 
threatened if they showed any hostility to him or to his 
people that he would do this, and strike them all with the 
disease. The Indians, very much alarmed, promised peace 
and kept their word. In May, 1812, arrived another ship, 
sent from New York the previous fall. She brought with 
her a number of clerks and employes, and the party began 
their work. 
The close of Captain Chittenden's history of the As- 
torian expedition is a glowing tribute to the accuracy of 
Washington Irving, its first historian, concerning whom 
he says, "In the essential respects of accuracy and com- 
prehensive treatment, Irving's work stands 'immeasurably 
above all others upon the subject." He deprecates strongly 
the criticism so often made on this great historian, and 
speaks very scathingly of some of Irving's modern critics, 
who, by innuendo rather than by correct statement, at- 
tempt to cast slurs on his literary honesty. 
Next in order after Astoria comes the history of the 
Rocky Mountain Fur Company, presided over at first by 
William H. Ashley, of St. Louis, with whom later were 
Smith, Jackson, the two Sublettes, Campbell, James 
Bridger, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Samuel Tulloch and a num- 
ber of other well-known men. Ashley was a Virginian 
who came to St. Louis when only twenty-four years old, 
and died near there in 1838, at the age of sixty. He has 
left his name imprinted on many of the features of the 
West. Most of the other men died long before our time, 
but Bridger survived until 1881, and Campbell until 1879. 
Like most of the early trading expeditions, the one first 
led by Ashley went up the Missouri River. It had the 
usual trouble with the Arikaras, of whom Ashley said 
that they handled their guns with as much expertness as 
any men he ever saw. 
. At the close of this battle Ashley sent word to Major 
O'Fallon, Indian agent, and to the commanding officers at 
Fort Atkinson, asking them to send a force of troops to 
chastise the Indians, but feeling doubtful about the result 
of their message, they left the battle field and dropped 
down the river. Ashley's subsequent explorations, trap- 
ping expeditions and trading are of extreme interest. He 
partially explored the Green River, which was then 
thought to empty into the Gulf of Mexico, going down 
as far as the mouth of what is now Ashley Fork, where 
his boat was wrecked and the men rescued with difficulty. 
Here he inscribed his name and a date on a high rock, 
which forty-four years later was noticed by Major J, \\/^ 
