162 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 29, tgoj. 
That little creature queer, 
The humming-bird, as busj' as a bee, 
Darting 'mongst the blooming shrubbery. 
xn gay and joyous spring, 
The oriole should bring 
His lady there to hang her nest on high 
In some tall tree not far from where I lie. 
And on a cloudy day 
The chittering swallows, they, 
When the rain is gone, should fly about my moi id, 
Sailing swiftly low down near the ground. 
And when the night is near. 
The bull-bat should appear, 
And fly around upon expansive wing 
About the place where I am slumbering. 
In snowy winter time 
Should frequent there and climb 
About the branches of the trees and sit 
Arid pick the bark, sapsucker and tomtit. 
And one should come there, too. 
The little sparrow, who 
Delights to flit around in playful rout. 
Clinging to the weed-stalks roundabout. 
. . . ' ■ ' i 
When come the snow and sleet. 
The snow-bird, too, should greet 
The winter sparrow there, and thel-e also 
Pay his respects, the little Eskimo. 
From early spring until 
The frost is on the hill. 
While other warblers wonder at his power, 
The mockingbird should sing there hour by hour. 
In summer time the shrike. 
Upon a mullin-spike. 
Should sit not far away and look as though 
He'd lost a friend in him that lieth low. 
And on the approach of night. 
His solitary flight 
The heron oft will bend o'er field and dell 
To pass the place where I am resting well. 
The rain-crow he should fly, 
When it is hot and dry 
In summer time, to some treetop that's green 
And croak for rain to come refresh the scene. 
When the moonlight's over ail. 
The whippoorwill should call, 
Close by my grave his mate across the hill, 
Or. in the grove along the rippling rill. 
If, then, when I am gone 
None come to look upon 
My grave but loved ones who bemoan my fall, 
And these dear friends, what matters it at all? 
F. A. McGuiRE. 
Missouri. . jf..'/' 
Reforestation* 
A paper by Cbas. Cristadoro, of St. Paul, read before the Ameri- 
can Forestry Congress, Minneapolis, Aug. 25, 1903. 
Less than ten years ago when one referred to forestry 
there was but a single stereotyped response: "What is 
forestry? What do you mean by it?" 
The explanation that forestry in a broad sense meant 
firstly, the preservation of timber by intelligent and con- 
servative lumbering, and, secondly, the perpetuation of 
the same through reforestation, brought forth a smile 
and oftener a loud laugh, and, strange to say, the man 
laughing loudest and longest was the one most interested 
—the lumberman himself. 
But, "tempora iniitanter et nos nmtamur in illis," and 
certainly things are dift'erent to-day, for forestry has 
come to stay for all time, and is already recognized 
broadly throughout the land. Those who best understand 
ils meaning deeply regret that it was not better appre- 
ciated twenty years ago. 
But a few years ago some broad minded members of 
the Minnesota Federation of Women's Clubs visited the 
Chippewa Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, 
and, after spending a few" days in the vicinity of Cass 
and Leech lakes, as they turned their faces homeward, 
exclaimed : "Why cannot these beautiful forests be pre- 
served for the people?" And suiting the action to the 
word they went about the work of preserving a part of 
these thousands of acres of crystal waters and virgin 
pines. 
The history of their work can be written in a few 
words. Ridicule and opposition came from all directions, 
especially from some lumbermen and a few of those de- 
pending for their political welfare upon the campaign 
funds contributed by the lumbermei:. 
It was a long and stubborn fight. Appeals to the 
Legislat.ure, to the Representatives of the State of Min- 
nesota, to the public through the press, and to men of 
prominence, were made, but only to be met in most cases 
with scant consideration. 
But the good work was pushed forward in the face of 
the fact that it was seemingly a crime in the eyes of the 
opposition to attempt to preserve a pine tree or to suggest 
the planting of one to replace the one cut down. 
As one of our Representatives put it: "The forests 
have no other use than to be cut up into lumber, and 
the speedier it is done the better for all concerned." 
Certainly a case of "after us, the deluge I" 
The fight was a bitter and stubborn one, but daily new 
friends of forestry were made and the cause of forestry 
grew apace. 
One obstacle after another was overcome, and the op- 
ponents of tree preservation and reproduction laughed 
less and grew more and more concerned. 
To ride roughshod over the sentiment that had been 
created was out of the question. It had come to a point 
where the opposition had to listen. 
Afic} finally the Morris bill, which gave to the people 
for all time many thousands of acres of virgin pine, and 
in addition many more for the purposes of reforestation, 
was proposed and became a law. Thus will be per- 
petuated the name of one who bitterly fought the cause 
of forestry and reforestation in Minnesota from its 
inception. 
Now that the wedge of forestry has been driven in we 
must go apace. Reforestation of cut-over and other 
wise unproductive lands should be the question of the 
day in Minnesota. 
Where pine trees once grew they can be made to grow 
again. Soil that has once produced pine trees will some- 
times grow nothing else. Heavily bouldered and stony 
land that once supported extensive forests of red or 
Norway pine can be made to produce its like again. 
Unfortunately pine farming and wheat farming sug- 
gest varying temporal propositions. It takes eighty years 
to mature one crop and but a few months to produce the 
other. 
And what will the pine farmer do and how will he raise 
the funds to meet his taxes annually while his crop is 
maturing? A Morgan, a Rockefeller and a Gould, we 
think, would balk on a proposition that meant a steady 
outlay for eighty years before a dividend was declared. 
Therefore how can we have reforestation? The State 
might go into the pine raising industry, and it certainly 
would be a good investment for the State. And yet with- 
out going into the business itself it can help others who 
are willing to do so. 
There are those who, if the taxes were waived by the 
State on their cut-over lands, might reforest them. To 
exact taxes on agriculturally worthless cut-over pine 
lands is to have them abandoned to the State to lie dor- 
mant and unproductive, a condition that carries no 
meaning of economy with it. 
For years we have been told that our white pine 
stumpage was growing less and less, and in so many 
years it would be gone. We have heard it so often that 
it has been like the cry of "Wolf! Wolf!" Yet the white 
pine sun is fast setting beyond the horizon of Minnesota. 
Her days of magnificent cork pine trees are gone to re- 
turn, let us hope, perhaps again to a limited extent, under 
reforestation. 
The dismantled lumber mills along the greatest logging 
water way the world has ever known only too surely tell 
the tale. There are fewer mills running every year, and 
the cut is growing less and less. 
The millions that have been made in the white pine 
forests of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are to- 
day seeking investment among the giant firs, spruces and 
redwoods of the coast and among the cypress and yellow 
pine of the South. There are no more great solid bodies 
of white pine for sale within the former white pine belt. 
That there is a crying need for reforestation within 
the States above mentioned cannot be questioned. 
As an illustration of the advance in forestry, there are 
one hundred students following it tip to-day as a profes- 
sion and life work where there was one ten years ago. 
The very men who only a short time ago smiled at the 
mere suggestion of forestry are to-day employing these 
selfsame visionary and theoretical foresters to tell them 
how to best handle their yet standing timber. 
Forestry has not only come to stay, but to grow until 
the sentiment has reached that point when it will be con- 
sidered a blunder not to plant a fresh pine aside the one 
just cut down. So may it be. 
A Morning with the Squeteague. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Being on leave of absence revisiting the scenes of 
mv boyhood, I received an invitation to visit a dear 
friend living in Providence; and, as an extra induce- 
ment, among other things, he said that we would go 
down the bay and fish for squetague; he also said, "Be 
sure and bring Willie"^ — -my son, aged fourteen. This 
friend, whom, for convenience, we will call the Doctor, 
is a prince of good fellows, bright, merry and generous 
almost to a fault. I had neither seen hun nor his sur- 
roundings for ten long years, and I hastened to accept 
his invitation; and, profiting by Mr. Christadoro's ad- 
vice, I took "the boy along." 
Omitting other details of the visit, I will commence 
the narrative of our trip down the bay after the squit. 
After an absence of ten years I was surprised to find 
how convenient and comfortable everything has become 
as regards travel, especially on short trips about New 
England. Electric cars have wholly reorganized local 
traffic. We left the Doctoi-'s house one evening be- 
tween 8 and 9 o'clock, neatly dressed, and carrying with 
us nothing but a basket of bait — live shrimp, dried and 
packed in sawdust. We might have caught the bait 
ourselves, if we had worked hard enough, but it seems 
that procuring bait is a greater undertaking than using 
it after it has been secured. The Doctor's professional 
duties would scarcely admit of his absence long enough 
both to catch and then use the bait; and as for Willie 
and myself, we were landlubbers from St. Louis, who, 
if sent for shrimp, would have known no better than 
to have gone to the nearest fancy grocery and pur- 
chased a can of Barataria shrimp — the kind that has a 
picture of a red lobster on the label. So the Doctor 
procured the bait from an expert; it was abundant 
and just what was needed. In addition to the bait we 
also carried a loaf of fresh bread. I have spent most 
of my hunting and fishing life on the plains of the 
West, when it was necessary, upon going out for a day 
or two's sport, not only to provide upon starting 
everything that could be needed for the entire trip, but 
also the mules and wagons wherewith to carry it; 
the Doctor's preparations consequently struck me as 
rather simple. I offered no suggestions, however, and 
awaited developments. We soon took an electric car 
that carried us svvi^tly to a point about ten miles down 
Narragansett Bay, called Oakland Beach. The car was 
spacious, comfortable and even elegant; one might al- 
most suppose himself en route to a presidential in- 
auguration instead of on a simple fishing trip. The 
only objection I can find with its service is the fre- 
quency with which the conductor came around and 
exacted nickels from the passengers. There is cer- 
tainly room for improvement in this respect. 
About 9:30 we got out at a little station with a minia- 
ture grocery beside it. We, that is, the Doctor, pur- 
chased a few potatoes, he then led the way in the dark 
across a field, and in a few moments we brought up at 
the clubhouse of the Oakland Beach Fishing Associa- 
tion. This clubhouse was a very small, unpretentious 
affair, but possessed the merit of having all that is ever 
required of it by the six members composing the club, 
and nothing else. In order to secure this desirable 
end, I doubt not, more real thought and care had been 
devoted to its arrangement than had been bestowed 
upon some larger and more pretentious affairs. Upon 
the Doctor's lighting up, we found ourselves in an un- 
finished frame room, about ten by fourteen, contain- 
ing a small cook stove and furniture, table and chairs, 
well-filled cupboard and lockers, while on the ceiling 
joists above rested oars, rudders, rods, landing nets, 
gaffs and similar appliances; and still above, drawn up 
by neat little pulleys and cords, hung anchors, coils of 
rope, bait nets, fish bags and I know not what. Just 
off the main room opened two little alcoves, each con- 
taining a tier of two bunks well supplied with bedding, 
and a wardrobe fitted up with everything necessary to 
be worn while fishing, from rubber boots and slickers 
to old clothes and palm hats; so one had only to lay 
aside the neat dress worn down on the journey and put 
on one suitable to the occasion from the many at hand. 
A porch ran along the water side of the house; about 
six paces from the porch was Greenwich Bay, and be- 
tween the two was a neat block of the proper size 
for dressing fish. Into the bay, for a short distance, 
projected a little boat pier, safely anchored beyond the 
pier were boats of various kinds, and a short distance 
behind the house commence the cottages of the sum- 
mer dwellers, where fresh water for the club is ob- 
tained. In order to gain a little time for the morning 
we got out our rods, jointed them, seated the reels and 
rigged the tackle; we then turned in. About this time 
a gentle rain commenced, and I don't know when I 
have been so pleasantly lulled to sleep as I was then 
by the patter on the low roof after our preparations 
were complete for fishing in the morning. 
The Doctor's alarm clock summoned us at 4:30 the 
next day; we found the morning still and cloudy, but 
the rain had ceased. A fire was soon burning in the 
cook stove, and, while waiting for water to boil, the 
Doctor secured a boat from its anchorage, brought it 
alongside the pier, and bailed out the water from the 
last night's and previous rains, and we then placed in 
it our oars, tackle, bait, etc. We then made coffee and 
took a simple breakfast of bread and butter, corned 
beef and coffee with condensed milk, all of these stores 
except the bread coining from the lockers of the club- 
house. Breakfast over, we lost no time in embark- 
ing and getting under way. The boat was rigged for 
four oars, and Willie, having a great desire to learn 
to row, seized one pair while the Doctor took the other. 
The pull was two or three miles against the tide, and 
the boy picked up some idea of rowing, but, I fear, at 
the expense of the genial Doctor's, who had probably 
to furnish all the motive power and dodge Willie's 
oars besides. We reached the vicinity of the Black 
Buo}', and baited up about six o'clock. The Doctor 
said that courtesy to his guests would not permit him 
to catch a fish till each of us had taken one, so he pot- 
tered about, showing us what to do and adjusting the 
boat, till soon Willie's reel burst forth into song. 
The Doctor gave the little fellow a few hints on man- 
aging his fish, and in course of time he had it alongside, 
and I laid down my rod and landed it with the net. 
It was a fine squeteague, and two to three pounds in 
weight, and lively enough on the hook. The little fel- 
low had kept his wits about him, and had done very 
well with his first fish and felt a pardonable pride in its 
capture. While I was helping him to get his hook 
clear and baited again, my reel was set in motion with 
life, and in due season I landed my first squeteague. 
For the information of unlearned readers like myself, 
I will explain that a squeteague or squit, a weakfish, and 
a sea trout are one and the same thing, squeteague be- 
ing the old Indian name, the term weakfish being given 
doubtless on account of their mouths being easily torn 
out when hooked, and the term sea trout on account 
of a kind of lustrous marking, in appearance something 
like that of a trout, though they bear no relation to the 
family Salmo. 
His guests having acquitted themselves fairly credit- 
ably, the Doctor set about fishing himself, and from 
then on till about nine o'clock business was good and 
we had about all the sport we could utilize. We used 
short Bristol bait rods with click reels; the tide run- 
ning by kept our lines flat as we paid them out from 
the reel a little at a time with our hands, to some- 
thing like forty feet; the click was of assistance when 
a fish was hooked, sometimes we further retarded his 
efforts by a regulated thumb pressure on the reel; our 
hooks were well baited' with two or three live shrimp 
each. The fish bit well and we caught a fair propor- 
tion of them. It usually happened that we all three 
got bites about the same time, due, I suppose, to the 
fish passing in the vicinity of our boat in small groups. 
Almost every time I laid down my rod to help the boy 
land a fish, I would get a good one hooked on my own 
tackle; and all I would have to . do would be to land 
him. This might be regarded as a reward for my 
paternal efforts to help my boy along, but I can't con- 
sider it very complimentary to my skill as a fisher- 
man, the fish appearing to catch themselves better than 
I could catch them. The Doctor seemed to know all 
the arts for luring the fish to their destruction. He 
chummed them sometimes with bait and sometimes with 
sand, which he called economical bait; when they would 
no longer take the bait at the surface, he provided 
sinkers for our tackle, and we were soon catching them 
just as readily from a greater depth. In fact, while 
fishing with him, it seemed rather a simple thing to 
catch a good string of squeteague. 
About 9 o'clock our interest began to flag, and the 
Doctor pulled up his anchor and told me to lift in the 
fish bag: we had kept this on the outside of the boat 
in the water so as to keep the fish alive and fresh, and 
as we have made no count while fishing, we had no ac- 
curate idea as to the number taken. I reached over, 
seized the sack, and endeavored to lift it into the l?oat. 
