Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1908 by Fobbst and Stkkam Publishing Co. 
Terms, fi a Year. 10 Cts. a CofY. 
Six Months, $2. 
[ 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 1908 
j VOL. LXI.— No. 7. 
I 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 
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 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
THIRTY YEARS. 
The first number of the Forest and Stream was dated 
August 14, T873. The issue of this week completes a 
term of thirty years. The occasion is one which prompts a 
backward glance and a look ahead. The period of 
thirty years between 1873 and 1903 has witnessed 
vast and far reaching changes in the special field which 
the paper has made its own. The sportsman of to-day 
confronts conditions vastly diiYerent from those that pre- 
vailed then. The ti-ansitions have been more marked in 
character than those which took place during a century 
before, and we may well believe that a century to come ' 
v.ill not witness changes so radical and complete. The 
three salient features of the period have been the multi- 
plication of sportsmen, the decrease of game, and the de- 
velopment of the game protection idea. Each one of these 
of course may be appreciated fully only by the elders who 
can compare the present with that vanished past in which 
they had part. The young man of 1903 knows the buffalo 
only as a curious specimen in zoological exhibits or of 
1)ook lore, x-^lmost as much might be said relative to the 
mountain sheep, the mountain goat, and the antelope, 
now so extremely rare and their pursuit so hedged about 
by restrictive laws that it is only the man who is specially 
favored of forttme who may hope to see them in their 
native wilds. So, too, with the game birds, of which 
the supply and the shooting are in marked contrast with 
the abundance and the conventional license of a quarter 
century back. 
While in America we are in sad straits as to our big 
game supply, there is yet abundant reason for encour- 
agement. As a people we have been blind, but to-day we 
see. If proof of this is demanded, it may be found in 
our codes of game laws yearly becoming more stringent 
in their provisions. Whereas in the old days the notion 
that the killing of big game might be restricted by any- 
thing else than the endurance and skill of the hunter 
would have been resented by the average individual, we 
have now come to the color of hair and eyes stage, where 
we recognize that we may take game only "in the manner, 
to the amount, and for the purpose" duly set out in the 
1::W. In short, we have aeC]uired an entirely new way 
of looking upon our game resources, an entirely new ap- 
preciation and recognition of the relations which hold be- 
tween ihc individual sportsman and his fellows with 
respect to the game supply. In these thirty years we 
have advanced a hundred in common sense. 
The hosts of sportsmen now where there was a single 
one before mean, too, that the game will be all the longer 
nspured to us. When those who were enlisted in pro- 
tection were comparatively few, they were weak in influ- 
ence, and tlieir cause was weak. Now that the many 
are concerned, their cause is strong. We have reached 
and passed the limit in indifference and negligence as to 
Miir game: all signs of the limes point to enlarged 
luililic appreciation and concern, and to a system of game 
pveserA%ation more and more adequate to conserve the re- 
sdurces of field nnd mountain. 
rhe years Ining their own problems; a journal of and 
1\ and for sportsmen can do no better service than to 
■'upply a medium for their discussion, 
SNAP SHOTS. 
We print the communication signed by Lexden rela- 
tive to that of Mr. Spears in our last issue chiefly for the 
reason that the misapprehension shown by the writer of 
this week may be shared by others, and should be cor- 
rected. Lexden finds the article written by Mr. Spears 
anarchistic and communistic. A careful reading of it 
will show that it is neither. We think the saying of this 
worth while, for one reason because we do not mean to 
publish articles which are anarchistic, and we are there- 
fore somewhat jealous of the good fame of our columns. 
What Mr. Spears advocated was the taking over by the 
Slate, in ways duly provided by law, Adirondack terri- 
tory, and converting it into a park for the public. One 
of the east windows of the Forest and Stream office 
overlooks, not far away, a grateful bit of green sward in 
Mulberry Bend Park. The park was formerly the site of 
a congeries of tenement houses which were among the 
most unsanitary and squalid in the city. The municipality 
bought the tenements and removed them, and put in place 
of them a breathing place for a congested quarter. We 
have never heard any charge that this action by the city 
was anarchistic. In principle the Adirondack Park 
proposition is similar; and wherein it is any the more 
anarchistic does not at first blush appear. There is now 
before Congress a proposition to set aside an extensive 
tract of mountain countrj'' in Southern States as an 
Appalachian forest preserve. The proposal has already 
been given approval in one branch of Congress, and its 
advocates have confidence that in an early session the 
plan will be adopted. We have yet to learn that there 
exists any opposition to it based upon the ground that it 
is anarchistic. If a city may acquire tenement property 
for park purposes, and if the United States may acquire 
mountain forest lands for park purposes without involv- 
ing anarchy in the doing of it, we fail to appreciate the 
reasonableness of the view that if the State should acquire 
land for park purposes that would be anarchistic. 
John W. Titcomb, chief of the fishcultural branch of 
the Bureau of Fisheries (as the United States Commis- 
sion of Fisheries is now termed under the Department 
of Commerce and Labor), will sail from New York on 
September 2 for Argentina. He will go at the instance of 
the Argentine Government, which requested through the 
State Department that he might be detailed for some 
special work of investigation in Argentina. The Argen- 
tine Government has never done anything in the way of 
developing their fisheries, and want to introduce the 
Salmonida of this country, if it is practicable. In the 
southwestern portion of the country there are many large 
clear water lakes, and some clear water streams which 
will, perhaps, be found suitable for the support of the 
species. Mr. Titcomb will go to Buenos Ayres, and from 
there proceed southwest toward the foothills of the 
Andes in what is called the Neuquen region. He expects 
to be absent from this country six months. Mr. Tit- 
comb's familiarity with the subject and his experience and 
information admirably equip him for this work, and we 
trust that his quest for suitable waters for our northern 
species may result in adding a substantial factor to Ar- 
gentina's food fish supply, and introducing the Argentine 
angler to the pleasures of angling for salmon and trout. 
A condition of the thirty years' publication of Forest 
AND Stream well worthy of note is the continuing repre- 
sentation in its pages of advertisers who were there in the 
issue of August 14. '1873. This is a record which cannot 
be surpassed, and it is one in which a just pride is felt. 
To have been awarded this uninterrupted patronage for 
such an extended term is something which testifies in a 
most substantial way to the paper's usefulness and value 
as an advertising medium. 
Mr. John G. Hecksmer. of this city, has recently con- 
tributed $100 10 the fund for placing an Izaak Walton 
memorial window in the cathedral containing Walton's 
tomb. The project has been under way for some years, 
l}ut appears to have languished. 
EARLY STEAMBOATING ON THE MISSOURI. 
There is no natural feature of North America about 
which clusters more of interest and of romance than 
about the Missouri. The longest river in the world, 
it was for almost three-quarters of a century the chief 
road by which the northwestern portion of the United 
States was reached, and, more than any other high- 
way, it influenced the upbuilding of the whole western 
country. "The business of the fur trade, the inter- 
course of Government agents with the Indians, the 
campaigns of the army throughout the valley and the 
wild rush of gold seekers to the mountains, all de- 
pended in greater or less degree upon the Missouri 
River as a line of transportation." For nearly eighty 
years from the time when Lewis and Clarke sailed, 
rowed and cordelled their keel boat up its tortuous 
course in 1804, to the date when the Northern Pacific 
and Great Northern Railroads had built their lines 
to the Rocky Mountains, the great river was the scene 
of business activity, of thrilling adventures and of 
picturesque happenings. 
No theme could be more interesting for the pen of 
historian or romancer than the story of the big river, 
and, indeed, many incidents of the tale have been 
told; but until the present time no attempt has been 
made to write its serious history. This, however, has 
lately been done by Capt. Hiram Martin Chittenden, 
well known through his other works, the "History of 
the Yellowstone National Park" and the "American 
Fur Trade of the Far West." Flis work is entitled 
"History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Up- 
per Missouri River, Life and Adventures of Joseph 
La Barge, Pioneer Navigator and Indian Trader," for 
fifty years identified with the commerce of the Mis- 
souri Valley. 
The present volumes are the direct outgrowth of 
Capt. Chittenden's investigations into the American 
fur trade, for it was while engaged in collecting data 
for the history of that industi:y that the author met 
Capt. Joseph La Barge, an aged Missouri River pilot. 
The long experience of this veteran impressed Capt. 
Chittenden with the importance of recording his mem- 
ories of early Western history, and the author took 
down from Capt. La Barge's dictation full notes of 
his life. Before these could be published Capt. La 
Barge died; and as the material was more fujly con- 
sidered, it appeared that his memoirs were largely 
the history of steamboat navigation on the Missouri 
River. The scope of the work now underwent a mate- 
rial change, and while Capt. La Barge still remains 
its central figure, it has been expanded to include the 
history of navigation on the river. 
Incidentally, a vast deal of collateral matter is 
brought in. Aside from the details of early naviga- 
tion, much is told of the influence had on that navi- 
gation by the fur trade, the Civil War, the discovery 
of gold in Montana, the dealings with the Indians and 
the army. At last came the battle of the steamboats 
with the railroads, and the final decline of the river as 
a highway. For many years after the railroads had 
absolutely killed trade upon the Missouri River; the 
Government waged an unequal war with destiny and 
struggled to maintain freight traffic along the river. 
The Missouri River Commission was created in 
1884, and while it did much useful work and protected 
much property, it did nothing whatever to improve 
freight trafiic on the Missouri, and was finally abol- 
ished by Act of Congress, June 13, 1902. 
Capt. La Barge is the central figure of the book. It 
is largely devoted, to his life and adventures, successes 
and failures. Yet the work tells much of the Missouri 
River, the boats used on it and many of the earlier 
voyages, especially those between 1843 and 1863. 
Clearly painted pictures are given of the river life on 
the river in those early days, and the strange characters 
inhabiting the country, and developed by the life. Capt. 
La Barge commanded the steamboat which took Audu- 
bon, the naturalist, up the river, the time consumed be- 
ing 49 days from St. Louis to Fort Union, which they 
reached June 12. During the voyage up the river in 
the following year,, an amusing incident occurred as 
to buft'alo. The provisions furnished by the fur com- 
pany for the crew of the Nimrod were scanty and the 
