Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1903, by Fohbst aito Stream Publishimq Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. IO^Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2. ) 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1903. 
J VOL. LX.— No. 11. 
(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 
oages 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. 
SPRING SHOOTING. 
One of the most important measures now before the 
game committees of the New York Legislature is Senator 
Brown's bill to forbid the spring shooting of wildfowl. 
The question at issue is whether New York shall put 
itself in line with other States and the Provinces in its 
longitudinal range and give the fowl a free course on the 
spring journey to the breeding grounds. The chart 
printed on another page shows the situation at a glance. 
The ducks come to us in the late summer or early fall, 
and over much of the country the shooting lasts for about 
eight months. During this long open season it is ob- 
vious that, with the number of gunners that exist and 
the present easy means of transit from north to south, 
and from east to west, more birds are killed each season 
than were bred the summer before. The supply of wild- 
fowl is constantly decreasing. 
There is but one remedy for this. We cannot breed 
ducks and turn them loose on our waters as we breed 
fish to stock our lakes and streams. No method has yet 
been devised of rearing these birds in captivity. We 
must shorten the open season so that each year a less 
number of birds may be killed, and more may be saved to 
return to tltfeir northern breeding grounds, where for a 
few months they are measurably free from pursuit by 
man. 
If it is worth while to keep up the supply of these 
birds, it is evident that some months must be cut off from 
this long open season, and the only question to be deter- 
mined is whether these months shall be taken from the 
earlier or the later part of the season. As to this there 
can be little doubt. The autumn is the time to shoot 
wildfowl, and they should be protected during the late 
winter and early spring when they have mated and are 
starting, or are about to start, for their breeding grounds. 
An important reason for abandoning in New York the 
practice of shooting wildfowl in the spring is that by do- 
ing so we shall at once induce a large number of these 
birds to remain with us through the summer to rear their 
young in all places suitable to their habits. At present 
the birds are shot at from the time of their arrival to 
that of their departure. They have no opportunity to 
select nesting places, and those so persistent as to strive 
to rear their young in the State of New York are quite 
certain to be killed before the young are hatched. 
Formerly several species of our best ducks bred in New 
York State, not only on and near Long Island, but about 
many of the beautiful lakes which are scattered over the 
central and northern portion of the State. To-day it is 
impossible . for the birds to breed in such situations in 
any numbers owing to continued pursuit by gunners. 
Many of the birds which on their migration north and 
south stop for rest on the Great South Bay and Long 
Island Sound, if undisturbed in the spring would not 
migrate beyond the borders of New York State, but 
would nest and rear their young with us. 
The State of New York is fortunate in having within 
its borders an object lesson most instructive to sports- 
men and to legislators. In Jefferson count5^ where for 
two years spring shooting on petition of the residents 
has been abolished, the testimony is overwhelfning that 
there have never before been known so many birds as 
during these two years. Black ducks have bred there in 
great numbers, as well as mallards, broadbills and red- 
heads. The shooting there in autumn has been far better 
than ever before; and similar conditions may be looked 
forward to for the whole State when the Legislature shall 
in its wisdom see fit to forbid spring shooting throughout 
New \''ork. 
The State which owns the game exercises its ownership 
and control for the benefit of all its citizens. It does not 
— or at least it should not — legislate in favor of any class 
or clique or special locality. It wishes its citizens to use 
its game and its forests; but it does not wish to have one 
man unduly successful at the expense of ninety-nine of 
his fellows. It is for this reason that nets, dynamite or 
poison are forbidden in the case of certain fish, swivel 
guns in the case of wildfowl, and traps in the case of 
certain large game. The State considers the greatest good 
of the greatest number, and cannot permit a community 
or a county to stand in the way of a great reform. 
COLD STORAGE. 
We print else^vhere the comprehensive and well con- 
sidered review of the relation of cold storage to game, in 
a paper read by Dr. ,T. S. Palmer, of the Biological Sur- 
vey, before the Warehousemen's Association. The cold 
storage system, now so highly perfected, is one of the 
most serious factors we have to contend with in provid- 
ing adequate protection for our game. The cold storage 
vault makes practicable the preservation of dead game 
for an indefinite period. It has multiplied many fold the 
market capacity. By the agency of cold storage game' 
may be, and it is, supplied to consumers the year around. 
Game birds from cold storage are served in the city 
in hotels, restaurants, clubs and on private tables in the 
close season. This illicit traffic is one which we shall 
probably never see entirely suppressed, but it may be 
materially reduced. 
As the special agent of the Government charged with 
the execution of the Lacey Act, Dr. Palmer has done ad- 
mirable and efficient service, and his knowledge of the 
situation is such as to give the weight of authority to 
what he says. His suggestions to the warehousemen for 
the rules of business conduct in their relation to the 
owners of game are these:. 
1. That no game placed in storage would be delivered during 
the close season, directly or indirectly. 
2. That no game would be received except in packages marked 
with the owner's name and a true state of contents. If inspection 
showed that any packages were falsely marked the storage charges 
on such packages would be increased 10 per cent. 
3. (By insertion of clause in storage contract or otherwise) 
That all game would be received only at owner's risk and subject 
to all the restrictions of the State laws. 
These rules are such as might be adopted without the 
slightest hesitation; indeed, to enforce such precautions 
as are here indicated would appear to be mere ordinary 
business prudence. If the Arctic Freezer Company, of this 
city, which loaded itself up with illicit game and is now 
carrying the burden of expensive suits, had adopted some 
such rule, the proprietors would have been in much hap- 
pier state of mind to-day. 
Is it not about time for cold storage concerns every- 
where to take: the stand, with respect to game, that they 
will do business on the square, and will not permit them- 
selves to be used as fences for dishonest dealers in game 
out of season? 
THE SPORTSMEN'S SHOW. 
In the affairs of Madison Square Garden, great events 
almost tread on each other's heels in the hasty swiftness 
of their going and coming. 
After a successful two weeks, the Sportsmen's Show 
closed on last Saturday evening. But the sound of ham- 
mer and saw could be heard some days before its closing 
in preparation for the installation of the circus — "The 
greatest show on earth," in the grandiloquent jargon of 
the press agent — which follows closely in the Garden 
after the Sportsmen's Show. And yet the two institu- 
tions, the Sportsmen's Show and the circus show, so dif- 
ferent in name and so different in properties, have many 
things in common. Both have reached a stage where, in 
the genius of their promoters and managers, they cater 
to the amusement cravings of their patrons, and seem to 
achieve a consequent success at the gate. Both, the circus 
in general and the Sportsmen's Show in particular, have 
features which are entirely foreign to what their titles 
signify. Each in turn has featiires which the other has 
not. For instance, the circus has a good zoological de- 
partment, in which are specimens of big game animals 
and game birds; the Sportsmen's Show did not have 
any. The show had a theatrical dominating feature; the 
circus has it not. 
Still, the big Garden amphitheater was not without 
some realism of the wilderness in the way of delicate 
suggestion, some few little bare trees grouped modestly 
in a place or two serving amply for that purpose. Apart 
from that, any suggestion of fields and forests was left 
to the imagination of the visitor. That was the general 
effect. 
There was some fly-casting, in a subdued way. The 
trade exhibits were excellent, but the supplementary 
Sportsmen's Show features which completed the connec- 
tions between trade and sport of field and stream, were 
meagre. The meagreness was accentuated by being 
trifling. 
The real features of the show were the canoe tilting 
matches and the cantata, Hiawatha. The tilting is related 
in a way to outdoor sport, the singing not at all. The 
cantata, however, was the dominant feature of the whole 
show. While it proved a great drawing card from its 
novelty, from the prestige derived from the poem and 
from the excellent chorus and soloists who accompanied 
it, it should have been an accessory to the show instead 
of the dominant attraction. 
In the main, the show was theatrical. The true title 
would more properly have been, "Hiawatha, with some 
accessories of sportsmanship." 
Apart from the excellent trade exhibits, there was noth- 
ing of an educational character to interest the sports- 
man. 
The circus which follows the Sportsrhen's Show in the 
Garden events caters to the amusement and diversion of 
its patrons, and sails under its proper title. This is one 
of the properties not possessed in common. 
It would be pretty late in the day to start a crusade 
against the cruelty of trapping. The practice has been 
going on for some thousands of years, and many millions 
of creatures, large and small, have been trapped. Hun- 
dreds of thousands are trapped annually. Traps and kill- 
ing devices vary as to the degree of cruelty involved in 
their operation, In large proportion the traps are dead- 
falls which break the neck or the back and kill speedily. 
Others, set for water prey, draw beneath the surface and 
drown. To institute a movement to change the character 
of the trapper's pursuit would of course amount to noth- 
ing. Trapping is done in the far wilderness ; it is beyond 
the influence of sportsmen's sentiment or public discus- 
sion. The specific Nova Scotia snaring of moose which 
has prompted our correspondent's suggestion is, however, 
an evil against which the sportsmen of the Province are 
contending with much promise of success. This mode of 
capturing the game appears to be practiced in Nova 
Scotia more commonly than anywhere else. Agents of 
the Game and Inland Fishery Protection Society are con- 
stantly patrolling the woods, hunting out and destroying 
moose snares, and arresting and prosecuting the snarers. 
Notwithstanding the destruction by snares and the legal 
y^llll^g — 350 were lawfully killed in 1902— the moose are 
reported to be holding their own. 
The millionaire— as to his nature, work and ways- 
is a topic prolific of discussion in the journalism of the 
day. The subject is a broad one, for your millionaire 
is, after all, a human being, and any discussion of him 
must then be as broad and far reaching and all embrac- 
ing as human nature. If we were to give free scope to 
the debate on millionaires, wbich it would be one of the 
simplest things in the world to set going in the Forest 
AND Stream, there would be left no room for the con- 
tributors who want to tell us of their moose and trout, 
adventures and misadventures— things which are much 
more worth while writing about and reading about. The 
millionaire as a game preserve promoter is a legitimate 
subject of discussion; or rather, it should be, since the 
game preserve, by whomever owned, is one of the live 
topics of the day in the sportsmen's special field; and a 
consideration of the pros and the cons should prove not 
only interesting but suggestive and instructive. 
That is' a simple, cheap, practicable and . readily pro- 
vided fish saver which Dr. Henshall has devised and 
described in our fishing columns. It is so simple and 
ready-to-hand that it deserves, and doubtless will haye^ 
general adoption m. tfc.& irrigation dl&ttiets-. 
