862 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 8, 1904. 
upon the map. Soil that grew pine once, can be made to 
grow it again. The reforestation of land is not one in 
which private capital will venture. The returns, while 
certain, are too remote. Reforestation is something that 
alone can he successfully carried on only through and by 
the national and State governments. Germany is a stand- 
ing beneficent lesson in forestry that this country might 
well profit by. The German forests will be as thriving 
and remunerative a thousand years from now as they are 
to-day. Legislators are prone to interest themselves in 
bills that effect the every-day existence of their con- 
stituents to the absolute exclusion of the future, and while 
posterity is not alive to-day to plead its cause, yet it will 
live, I am afraid, to curse the shortsightedness of the 
men who made the laws and who went before. 
Charles Cristadoro. 
Before a Jury of His Peers. 
It is in my mind that I have a crow to pick with 
Brother Samuels, due altogether and wholly to his 
seductiveness as a scribe and knowledge of has-beens; 
and I hereby lay my case— as a layman — before the jury 
and. cry for judgment. "Which I am no lawyer," as 
Truthful James might say, but rely solely on the justice 
of my cause. 
Be it known, then, that said Brother Samuels did in 
an enticing article some months ago make mention 
specially of the wide difference in coloring found in 
the trout that have their habitat severally in Wild 
River, and its tributary, the Evans Brook, near Gilead, 
Maine. 
Now, that is an old stamping ground of mine. On 
this matter of cMor, B. S. is correct.- Your Evans 
troutling is dark, ruddy of fin and tummy, even as 
stated, and his Wild River mate is well-nigh as silvery 
as a shiner. He omitted to point out that our brunette 
dwelleth — or did — in a tree-hung stream that is indeed 
but a brook, with, at that time, plenty of shadowed 
places and dark-stoned bottoms. The river, per contra, 
is a wide expanse of stones for many a mile, sometimes 
over 100 feet wide, through the midst of which the 
water ambles along and yells over the wilderness of 
white rocks it has to irrigate; and the trout reflect its 
whiteness in their sidts. But that is a detail. The 
main iniquity is his assumption that trout are there. 
Fate had it, that as I rode in the train with Forest 
and Stream and that article in my lap, along came a 
friend of my boyhood, who has big lumber interests 
in that region, and gave me a hearty invitation to 
"come up and go trouting" once again. The old trail 
in was now a spur line of the railroad, he said, and a 
locomotive came down twice a day with the mails. I 
could go up on that. Now, my vacation was planned 
for Bethel, Me., ten miles below. The more I thought 
over that invitation, the more that article of Brother 
Samuels got in its evil work, till — well, what would you 
have done? I just dropped things and scooted. Hence 
this plaint. 
With a locomotive for transport, "going light," of 
course, was needless. So I filled my valise with a fish- 
ing suit, rubber boots, some "bait" — since my flies were 
a bit war-worn and Russian-like— and took the morning 
train upward. Gilead was there, all right; also the spur 
line, somewhat like an inch-worm, up and down. But 
no loco. However, here was a saturnine individual 
with a mail bag, and him I suavely interviewed. 
"Locomotive? Taken off." 
"When?" - " 
"Last week." 
"What for?" 
"Not enough business." 
"How does one get in." 
"Walk." 
"Hum. Want to carry my valise in for a considera- 
tion?" 
"Not for five dollars." 
"Well, I don't know that I would if I were in your 
place." And in all amiableness I even swung the thing 
a-shoulder and started to hit the ties over the four- 
mile stretch. 
Sir Saturnine trudged alongside a rod, and evolved a 
thought. f) 
"You can go up on a hand-car if you'll help pump." 
"Done!" And lo! the animile lay before us, loaded 
with section tools and locked. But the man of mail had 
a key that fitted, and he proceeded to dump the tools 
by the wayside. Now, hand-car work on an up-grade 
is mightily like the case of the Irishman who begged 
to work his passage on a canal boat, and was set to 
driving the mules along the towpath. After an hour 
or two, he gave it up, saying, "But for the name of the 
thing, I might as well war-r-lk." Still, at least, it 
was speedier than walking; and presently we overtook 
a wayfarer and slowed up. 
"Going in?" 
"Yers." 
"Want to help pump?" 
"Guess so. This 's a better car than the one you 
went down on." 
So my amiable host had swapped with the section 
men! I imagine the air was lurid around the station 
when they returned. This explained, too, its fine 
equipment of hardware that we left. The man of mail 
retained his brass, however. He needed it in his busi- 
ness. Presently we picked up yet another man, like- 
wise "going in," and we four made time, the four miles 
being covered in thirty minutes, buzz cart time. And 
the mail man didn't work over hard either. I be- 
thought me of Tom Sawyer, and his famous white- 
washed fence. 
No matter, we were there — very much so — and I 
gave mine eyes an extra rub. When last I was on that 
spot, one house and one little two-man power mill 
stood buried among the trees. Now, I was in a rail-j 
road switchyard in the bottom of a cleared valley, four 
or five miles in sight and a long-drawn-out village 
strung along for a mile or more in the hollow of the 
hills ! Furthermore, the mills were silent, the male pop- 
ulation, young and old, was free-footed; and the water 
was low as my spirits, as I sized up the case. What had 
Brother Samuels said as to this? Nix! 
The post-office was at the far end of the valley. So 
was friend H. Thither must I go. So I shouldered in 
earnest that solid valise and trudged. The stalwart 
mail man sauntered alongside. And wasn't it hot! The 
sun blazed down into that trough like a blast furnace. 
Never in my life have I felt it like that. My weight is 
about 106 pounds; I'm on the sunset side of forty-five. 
Did that man alongside offer to lend a hand, to carry 
my rod even? Not he! In a long experience with men 
of all sorts I have not met his like. Let us rejoice, 
brothers, that such are few, since, when found, they 
are so "few in a hill." 
No matter, again. One foot before the other, t'other 
foot before the first, one gets there or somewhere in 
due time. And H. was found, plump and jolly, well 
worth a tramp to meet again, even to arriving like a 
tramp. Something to eat was forthcoming instanter, 
but not much did I tarry over that. Excelsior! And 
I whooped it up stream on mine ancient trail, now a 
broad, well-traveled road! 
Well, it was pleasant once again to watch the water 
gleam in the sunlight golden; to pick wild raspberries 
by handfuls; to splash across through the shallows; 
to try every riffle, hollow, bend; and I tried 'em all 
with exceeding faithfulness. As the sun slid down, I 
could say that I had covered enough of that stream 
to warrant a just opinion of its merits as a popular 
resort. It had been popular — there was no doubt about 
that. In my long afternoon I saw just six trout of 
any size, five of which I caught. I won't say how large 
they were. I had no scales. Besides, it isn't neces- 
sary to the argument. They were trout; and the color- 
ing was even as Brother Sam hath said. So might a 
• hummingbird be of the color of an eagle, and both be 
birds. 
Also I flushed a brace of birds of another color, 
and well worth seeing. Evidently a couple of college 
girls en route through the woods a-pony-back for some 
forty miles through the mountains with a guide. Like 
other lovers of Wild life, I have a watchful habit, so it 
is not strange that I saw them before they saw me; 
saw them chatting merrily; saw that one rode saddle- 
less on blanket and surcingle, and— astride ; and saw 
the sudden acrobatic feet flash in a lightning-artist 
change back to the ordinary feminine position as her 
eyes chanced to meet me, while into the face dashed a 
sunrise color and a blaze of haughty wrath. 
I wonder why. Had I no right to exist? I re- 
gretted that she saw me, however. To me, trout ex- 
cepted, it is far more pleasure to watch some young 
wild thing at play unconscious than to kill it out of 
hand; and the role of kill joy is not one I hunt for, as 
a rule. 
Thus meditating, I silently drew aside and let them 
pass upon their way. 
But about my own plans — what next? This country 
clearly was over-settled with a free and independent 
population. I had discovered that even at that it had 
endured the- invasion of thirty fishermen on a single 
Sunday not long before. Would it pay to tarry, and go 
up Wild River on the morrow as per plan? In olden 
time, even, it was needful to tramp miles on miles up- 
stream before one saw a fin, as the lower reaches were 
ever barren. And now? Once or twice in my life be- 
fore I've run up against a proposition like "this and 
learned to know that there is a time, sometimes, when 
it is well to quit; to drop old plans for new, on a 
second's notice. So I even dropped that. Friend H. 
had gone out to civilization on business. The sun was 
low, the air was cool, I felt fresher than when I 
started. Vacation days are like a limited handful of 
gold coin — each one must be made to count to the ut- 
termost to avoid after regrets. So thinking, I shifted 
back into my thin walking suit, swung my valise 
a-shoulder, and started out afoot "over my happy morn- 
ing track," as Bird-o'-freedom Sawin said, tie-hitting 
down toward Gilead. 
There is a pleasure even in bucking against fate; and 
there would be a freight train down some time in the 
evening by which to get to Bethel. So on I ambled, 
stopping now and then to raid the raspberries — thickets 
of them, untouched even by a bird in many spots! 
and cheered along as I trudged by the old familiar yell 
of the river water in the bed below. There is a wild, 
solitary sound about it ever, to my mind; a hermit 
song, driving away finance and other cares, and when 
I hear it I need no other company. 
Thus passed an hour or more, and out of the wood- 
land swung the road, into the hamlet Gilead; and I felt 
as fresh as a mountain daisy. Then to me spake the 
station-master, even as the boy who told his* anxious 
mate, "There hain't goin' ter be no core!" — viz., "No 
freight down to-night." 
I thought a moment. 
"All right; just check this bag down next morning," 
and took to the road again. Ten miles on a summer 
night would be a pleasure — perhaps. I'd always wanted 
to take that walk, anyway. Now I could. Then here 
came in a stroke of luck, viz., friend H., surprised, per- 
haps a bit dismayed, at my sudden exodus, and driving 
a stout white horse, suitable to his own inches. A 
word or two and a laugh made that all right, and drop- 
ping business he took the time to give me a four-mile 
lift on the way, while we reminisced over some thirty 
years agone. Then, with a hearty handshake, I took 
the road again — the railroad while I could see the ties, 
then the common dusty. 
Dark? Well, summat! Twice I picked myself out 
of the ditch among brambles. Once I woke up a far- 
mer for a quart of milk. For an hour I watched a 
thunderstorm gathering in the north. Yet with scarce 
a break in my steady, two-and-a-half-mile-an-hour gait, 
I found myself trudging past the village church as the 
clocks struck 10. And I figured out that, that brook 
and all, I had an eighteen-mile walk that day, with 
city training, or lack of it, and, as said above, on the 
sunset side of forty-five — and perfectly fresh next day. 
But all the same, what saith the brotherhood? What 
is due to Brother Samuels, in the case before the court? 
Eighteen miles tramped, and five small troutlings — and 
what are they among so many? J. P. T. 
Some Things that are Missed. 
Wymore, Neb., Aug. 29.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
There are two things in which I took delight when I 
was a boy, back in Illinois, that I miss very much now, 
as they do not grow in Nebraska. They were hazel- 
nuts and crab apples. It may seem strange that a 
grown up man would miss such things, but let me tell 
you something about them. 
All along the small streams in that part of Illinois, 
where _ I roamed in boyhood, the crab apple grew in 
profusion. In the spring the very bright, red blossoms 
of the crab apple intermingled with the pure white 
blossoms of the wild plum; and no flower garden ever 
produced a more beautiful sight. And there is no flower 
or blossom that exhales so rare and rich a perfume as 
the blossom of the little crab apple. And when the apple 
itself was ripe it had a perfume that is not equalled by 
any other fruit, wild or tame. They were good to eat 
and made delicious preserves, and I am told that cider 
made from them, while a little tart, was as snappy and 
sparkling as champagne. But I never tried the cider 
It was only a quarter of a mile from that little pioneer 
home to the first hazel bushes. They grew all along the 
edges of timber and made a kind of margin or border 
between the prairie grass and woods, and in that rich 
soil they were from three to six, or even seven feet in 
height, and they were full of nuts every year. The nuts 
grew in clusters or bunches, in hulls with from one to 
three, or even four nuts in each bunch, and were 
gathered in the hull and laid out in the sun for two or 
three weeks to dry, and then the nuts were hulled out, 
put m little sacks and hung up for winter use! They 
grew as large as any filbert (the cultivated hazel nut) 
that I have ever seen. 
Some of my first hard work consisted of going hazel- 
nuttmg. I was supplied with a two-bushel sack, with 
one corner of one end tied to one corner of the other 
end and hung around my neck, with the mouth of the 
sack in front of me, so that I could hold it open with 
my eft hand and pick and put the nuts in with my right 
In this way I could get about a bushel of nuts, hulls and 
all in the sack at one time, and it made a pretty good 
load; and a bushel of them in the hulls would not hull 
out more than four quarts of nuts. The hulling out 
could be done at my leisure, after they got dry enough 
and after the crop was all gathered; and then we had 
all the winter evenings, in which to crack and eat them, 
and while some may like the rich butternut, or the 
shellbark hickory nut, or walnut better, give me the 
hazelnut. The hazelnut harvest generally lasted about 
a month. 
That neither the crab apple or hazelnut grow in 
-Nebraska seems to me a great oversight, and I am go- 
ing to see if I cannot supply the deficiency, to a small 
extent at least. I have bearing walnuts in my yard 
that grew from nuts that I planted, and I have butter- 
nuts growing also from seed sent to me from Illinois, 
and this fall I am going to plant some hazelnuts and 
see if I cannot have a "hazelnut patch," as we called 
it when I was a boy; and next spring I am going to 
plant some of the seeds of the crab apple. The hazel- 
nuts and crab apple seed will be sent to me from near 
my old boyhood home. 
. My first experience in planting walnuts did not work 
vl S ,\ a u \ ex P ecte , d - 1 Planted the, nuts in the fall in a 
little bed near the house, and depended upon moving 
them m the spring, but out of all that I moved the first 
time only one lived, and I found later that if the walnut ' 
grew six inches the first year, the tap root would be 
about a foot long; and if the tap root was cut, the 
little tree would not grow. Then I resorted to the plan 
"'P™? the nut where I wanted the tree to stay 
and had better success; but they can be readily moved 
if you go below the tap root. 
And while I am pointing out some of the deficiencies 
ol my adopted State, let me name a few other things 
, revele $ i in when a boy, that do not grow in 
Nebraska at least not in this part of the State. Black 
haws red haws, May apples and. ground cherries in the 
w-»- ' , , amon S the flowers, the following: Sweet 
Williams lady shppers, blue bells, Dutchman's breeches 
and Jack in the pulpit (Indian turnip and Indian 
tobacco. How any boy can ever amount to- anything 
without learning to eat Indian turnip and chew Indian 
tobacco, is more than I can understand. 
A. D. McCandeess. 
All the game laws and fish taws of the United States 
and Canada are given in the "Game Laws in Brief." 
A Maine Woods Swindler. 
Bangor, Me Sept. 30.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
bmce the article which appeared in this week's issue of 
Forest and Stream was written, on the subject of 
panthers m the Maine woods, it has developed that thexe 
are panthers although not of the species considered in 
that letter. The kind referred to are of the two-legged 
variety, and their covers, instead of being in the forests 
are in the secret places of the city. 
During a recent trip to Moosehead Lake and the West 
branch of the Penobscot, the writer learned of a de- 
velopment in the Maine "recreation industry" that might 
well be termed a "devil-up-ment," to apply a familiar pro- 
nunciation of the word. To be brief, it was simply a con- 
fidence game with the Maine woods as a shield, and both 
Maine and non-resident people as the victims. 
Only in connection with an outing in. the woods— that 
alluring prospect that for many years holds the most prom- 
inent place in the mmds of those not so richlv endowed with 
this worlds goods as to be able at will "to indulge the 
desire— could so cool and slick a scheme be worked as 
it appears to have been during the past summer and this 
letter is written in the hope that it may prevent others 
from falling victims to this enterprising "promoter's" 
plausible scheme. 
So much has been said and written by this sportsman 
or that tourist about the wildness of the Maine woods 
their utterly trackless condition in most sections, and the 
greed of those into whose hands one sometimes falls that 
it is not strange there are a good many people who would 
far sooner start on a trip to Europe or Japan than trust 
themselves amid the greatly magnified dangers of the 
