Forest and Stream 
Rod and 
Copyright, ]90S by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
A Weekly Journal of the 
G 
UN. 
Terms, $4 a Year. :0 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2. ) 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 2 7, 1903, 
VOL. LX.-NQ. 26. 
( No. 846 Broadway, New York. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instiuction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects tp which its 
pages 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 
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particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
SOME CAMP-FIRE RULES. 
With the coming of the camping season and the build- 
ing of camp-fires throughout the land, it is not untimely 
to repeat certain cautionary rules given before in these 
columns as a code of conduct with respect to the camp- 
fire : . * 
Never build a fire where its flame can communicate to 
grass or brush or branches of trees. 
Never build a fire where the sparks can be carried to 
brush or trees, or leaves or grass. 
Never build a fire without first noting the lay of the 
land with respect to coiitrolling it after it is kindled. 
Never leave camp for the day with the fire to burn un- 
attended. Extinguish it thoroughly. 
Under no circumstances, when moving camp, leave the 
fire to burn or smoulder. Put it out. 
To extinguish a fire built upon the ground where there 
is turf, the roots of trees or other vegetable matter in the 
soil, pour water upon it until the ground is thoroughly 
soaked; then dig around about and well outside the cir- 
cumference, throwing the earth in toward the center, and 
then wet it down again. 
THE STATE COLLEGE OF FORESTRY. 
Gov. Odetx having A-^etoed the appropriation for the 
support of the State College of Forestry, the Trustees of 
Cornell University have of necessity suspended the college 
work. The Governor's action is assumed to have been 
based upon an adverse report made by a special committee 
of the Legislature, which visited the college forests last 
year and inspected the experimental work, there con- 
ducted. The suspension is greatly to be deplored, and 
intelligent persons who are cognizant of the nature of the 
Work^Cornell was accomplishing will hope for its early 
resumption. The Governor's action was most ill advised. 
The State College of Forestry was performing service of 
incalculable value for the future, of such importance, in- 
deed, that the State could not afford to save the $10,000 
concerned in this item of the appropriation bill. The citi- 
zens of New York will not forever pursue the present 
policy with respect to the State forests. They will not 
content themselves with the simple constitutional pro- 
liAition of hands off. The State will some time practice 
forestry. Before that time can come there must be men 
trained in forestry and there must be knowledge of fores- 
try principles and methods as applied to the conditions 
existing in the Adirondacks and the Catskills. The 
foresters may be educated only at such schools as that of 
Cornell, and the knowledge can be acquired only by such 
experimental work as that which has been begun at the 
State experimental forest in the Adirondacks. To cut 
off summarily State support from these institutions which 
had been established by the State is a most inexpedient 
and unbusiness-like step. It also amounts to a breach of 
good faith on the part of the State with Cornell Uni- 
versity and the instructors and students of the State Col- 
lege of Forestry^ 
The principle of responsibility for the wrong use of 
sporting firearms is gaining recognition. Michigan has 
come into line with a measure to punish the negligent 
or careless shooting of human beings by persons in pur- 
suit of game. The new law declares that whoever "while 
hunting shall negligently or carelessly shoot or wound or 
kill a human being shall be punished by imprisonment 
for a term of not more than ten years or by a fine not ex- 
ceeding $1,000; and it is made the duty of the prosecut- 
ing officer and sheriff in the county where the shooting 
tidces place forthwith to investigate and prosecute. When 
it is considered that within the past few years the shoot- 
ing casualties in this country have run into the hundreds, 
the marvel is that a law like that of Michigan does not 
prevail in every State wherein hunting is practiced. 
Other Legislatures may well follow the example thus set 
and put the seal of public condemnation on this "careless" 
and "accidental" shooting, by characterizing it properly 
as of criminal nature. Rifles and shotguns are instru- 
ments of death; that every Tom, Dick or Harry should 
have free license to get out with these implements and 
disport himself to the undoing of his fellov/ men, and 
should be let oflf only with condolences and regrets, will 
one of these days be recognized in its true light as the 
grotesque complaisance of a thoughtless age. When we 
begin to think, we shall devise some way to put a limit to 
the roll of maimings and deaths in the woods. 
K 
This is an era of New Thought, with capital N and 
capital T. News stands display magazines devoted to its 
promulgation and temples are dedicated to its teachings. 
In Its printed expositions the New Thought is ex- 
pressed in smoothly flowing diction, which is yet most 
deceptive; for while upon not too attentive reading It ap- 
pears to be full of significance, Its meaning grows dubious 
and elusive and baffling the more carefully It Is studied. 
Take, for example, a paragraph In a current New Thought 
periodical which seems to have a bearing on certain 
phases of natural history: 
"He who is true to the law of his being is inspired. . . . 
His utterances find wings, and favoring currents, and sustenance, 
and breath in the Omnipresence, so that their mission is accom- 
plished, and their work sure, and their life sustained; and they 
set up a vibrating response in the element or substance of Bemg, 
which goes on forever and forever. No life is quite so dark, no 
animal quite so ferocious, no serpent quite so venomous, no weed 
quite so poisonous, after a true word has been sent forth to create 
the attuning influence in the Essence of Being, as It would have 
been without it. Thus is the gospel preached to every creature. 
Applying this specifically and practically to the 
amelioration of the ferocity of the grizzly, the venom of 
the rattlesnake and the poison of the poison ivy, v/hat 
does it mean? And can pages and volumes of "true words 
sent forth" ever take the place of a magazine rlfle^ for 
the grizzly, a club for the rattler and an ax for the ivy? 
The truth is that the New Thought is neither new nor 
thought; and it exercises as much influence upon brute 
and human as does the Aurora Borealis at which men 
marvel and of which they wonder what and why. 
Among the curiosities of the game laws as they come to 
us from the several Legislatures of 1903 is an extraor- 
dinary promulgation by Arkansas. Most States are con- 
tent to concern themselves only with the regulation of 
things within their own borders. But Arkansas Is ambi- 
tious to give law to the entire Union. She has adopted 
a drastic measure, which is nothing less than the follow- 
ing section contained in the new game law : 
"Section 4. It shall be unlawful for any person who is a 
non-resident of the State of Arkansas to shoot, hunt, fish 
or trap at any season of the year." 
The application of the law, it will be observed, is not 
limited to the State of Arkansas; It is general, compre- 
hensive and all-embracing. It applies to the Quatawam- 
kedgAvick and the Kalamazoo as well as to the White 
and the Washita. In the name of several millions of 
people outside the bounds of Arkansas, and hitherto be- 
lieving themselves bej'ond its jurisdiction, we protest, 
flout the authorities of Arkansas to their face, and de- 
clare that we shall still hunt and fish, subject only to the 
laws of the several States wherein we live or pay non- 
resident license fees. 
When some members of the Crescent Athletic Club of 
Brooklyn were playing golf the other Sunday afternoon 
they missed a golf ball, and called in a policeman to seize 
and search a small boy suspected of having stolen It. The 
policeman did not find the ball, but did 'bring out a bean- 
, shooter and a dead robin ; and he was moved to say : "A 
boy who would rob the nest and kill the birds with a 
bean-shooter ought to have his damned head shot oflF." 
This so shocked one of the Sunday golf players that he 
set off post haste and with what appears to have been 
malignant officiousness, to inform the Police Commis- 
sioner of the offense; and in the course of time the officer 
was put on trial and reprimanded for the extra-official 
characterization of the nest-robber's head. His plea in 
extenuation was that the robin killer needed a vigorous 
rebuke for his lasting admonition, and the language em- 
ployed was not stronger than the peculiar exigency of the 
case demanded. His notion appears to have been that 
there are circumstances which warrant the use of the 
word even by officials on duty. In this he unquestionably 
had for authority and examplar the revered Father of 
His Country, who, despite his solemn injunction to the 
Continental Army not to swear, did himself not hesitate 
to vent his feeling In the word "damn" when occasion 
wrung it from him. This is not to say that Washing- 
ton was profane. For while the courts have held diverse- 
ly on the subject— one of the District of Columbia decid- 
ing that "damn" was not profanity if provoked by the local 
street car service, the Supreme Court of Massa- 
chusetts, on the other hand, having sustained the lower 
courts in their decisions that the word "damned," applied 
to a rascal, was profane language under the law of Mis- 
sissippi—the general consensus of judicial opinion is that 
there is no profanity in the use of the word unless the 
name of the Deity is involved. Nevertheless the expres- 
sion is not nice, is certainly unbecoming in a policeman, 
and officers who so forget themselves in the presence of 
Sunday golf plavers must expect to be reprimanded.. 
K 
Among the curiosities which come to us from Albany 
this year is this new clause in the minnow law: "Min- 
nows shall not be taken within one hundred feet of any 
dock, pier, or boat landing structure along the Saint Law- 
rence River without the consent of the owneir on which 
the same is built." 
The intent of the regulation is to free the owners of 
docks and landings from annoyance by minnow netters in 
their close proximity. The peculiar wording implies that 
it Is the custom on the St. Lawrence to sink the owner 
and make a caisson of him for supporting his dam, pier 
or boat landing; and to secure evidence under this law it 
v/ould doubtless be necessary to dig up the sunken 
owner and produce him in evidence to prove that the 
structure came within the protection of the statute as 
one having an owner on which the same It was built. 
This aside, however, the dock minnow regulation Is one 
which has no place in the fish law. The purpose of the 
fish law is to protect fish, and it may regulate their tak- 
ing only with reference to such protection. The St. 
Lawrence dock regulations belong properly to the local 
town authorities, and should be left to them. 
St 
"By nature we nearly resemble one another; condition 
separates u§ very far." Thus Confucius ; and he might 
have been writing about men and men in their relation to 
the robin. If we of this vast country differ in our atti- 
tude toward the bird it is In large measure because con- 
ditions separate us very far. If the Northern man had 
been born and raised in the South he would have ac- 
quired views which are diametrically opposed to those his 
Northern environment has given him; and so with the 
Southerner had he been of the North. Those diverse 
sentiments, the criticisms, protests, defenses and discus- 
sions which are colored and determined in large measure 
by the geographical and sectional conditions which 
separate the participants so "very far," have ever a wel- 
come place In oilr columns; and they are sometimes all 
the more interesting because they Illustrate so well the 
common proneness to judge from one's own personal 
standpoint, without making allowance for that, of the' 
other party to the discussion. 
■t 
Forest Commissioner Ring, of Maine, says that no 
sporting camp was destroyed by the forest fires in that 
State, and that not a single deer has been reported killed 
by the conflagrations. The New York Commissioners 
report that the extent of devastation by fire in the Adiron- 
dacks has been exaggerated. The eighth annual report of 
the Chief Fire Warden of Minnesota shows that out of 
twenty-eight forest and prairie fires which occurred in 
that State in 1903, only one was ascribed to the careless- 
ness of a fisherman and two to that of hunters. 
Now that the mosquito has been revealed by science as 
the purveyor in ordinary of malaria to the human race, 
the term fly medicine as descriptive of insect repellant 
tskes on a new and vastly more significant meaning. It 
is, in fact, a medicine of far greater usefulness than sim- 
ply to avert the transitory irritation and smart of the 
sting; it means the prevention of malaria poisoning and 
deserves recognition in the pharma.copceja, _ 
