Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co, 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $8. ' ) 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1908, 
J VOL. LXV.— No. 8. 
( No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
CABIA BLANCO. 
Cabia Blanco is dead. The sturdy old cavalryman, 
wide traveler, keen observer and ready writer, passed 
away on Sunday, Aug. 13, after a brief illness. 
John A. Brooks was born in Allegheny, Pa., sixty-five 
years ago. In the Civil War he enlisted in Company C, 
Eighth Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry, and served three 
years and four months, participating in all the many bat- 
tles in which his regiment was engaged. After his dis- 
charge he went West, and enlisted in the regular U. S. 
Cavalry, where he served faithfully as messenger^ scout 
and sergeant, and won the approval of the officers for 
his many brave deeds, and for the intelligence he always 
showed in the service. He served almost twenty years. 
In 1888 he became a member of the Pennsylvania Sol- 
diers’ and Sailors’ Home at Erie, Pa., and from his en- 
trance to the day of his death he was a popular and use- 
ful member of the Home. He was a ready writer on most 
of the subjects interesting to readers of the Forest and 
. Stream, but much more wonderful than the way in which 
: he told of what he had seen and done was his remarkable 
memory, in which seemed to be stored some adventure or 
i some incident which fitted to almost every subject that 
[ came up. He wrote a vast deal that was , interesting 
I and useful on hunting, fishing, adventure and on Indian 
I life and warfare. He was very, fond of young people, and 
i v/as always happiest when a number of boys were his 
! companions, and he delighted in doing things for their 
: amusement and instruction. 
Cabia Blanco, though only an enlisted man, proved him- 
' self by his life a bright example of patriotism and love 
of country and a citizen whose usefulness was far above 
the average. He was buried with full military honors in 
, the Home Cemetery. 
FOREIGN GAME POSSESSION. 
The test case brought by the State against August 
Silz, a New York game dealer, to determine the point 
whether the law forbids the possession of foreign game 
in close season, has just been decided in favor of the 
State. Justice Greenbaum, sitting in Part XL of the 
Supreme Court, has handed down a decision that the 
having in possession game from abroad in the close sea- 
son is unlawful. 
The case was tried last May. It will be remembered 
that the birds which formed the subject of the prosecution 
were all of foreign origin, having been imported from 
Russia, Scotland, England and Egypt. Counsel for Mr. 
Silz contended that the law did not take cognizance of 
such species, but was intended to apply only to native 
game. The question of fact, as to whether the birds were 
identical with American species, was left with the jury, 
which found that they were entirely different. Justice 
Greenbaum then took under advisement the legal con- 
sideration involved, and his construction of the law is 
that it plainly forbids the possession of foreign game in 
the close season for domestic birds. 
In commenting on the decision, the attorneys for Mr. 
Silz declare themselves at a loss to account for such an 
interpretation of the statute, since “the opinion of the bar 
is practically unanimous that our game laws were framed 
to protect the birds of the State of New York and the 
United States, and do not apply to the birds that are law- 
fully taken in Europe and elsewhere abroad.” As a mat- 
ter of fact, there is no such unanimous opinion of the 
bar; there are well known and able lawyers of New York 
city who have for years been contending strenuously for 
the principle that the law forbidding the possession of 
game in close time applies to all game without reference 
to its origin; and until recent years, so long as the statute 
was so worded as to leave no ground for uncertainty, that 
view prevailed. 
There can be no question of the intent of the framers 
of the law. Experience has shown that the only effective 
close time is one which is close for all game, whether 
domestic or foreign; it was the purpose of the Legisla- 
ture to make an effective close time, and to insure this it 
was likewise the purpose to forbid the possession of all 
game, whether from New York or New Hampshire or 
New South Wales. This may appear unreasonable to the 
importer of foreign birds, and it must be confessed that 
it has the look of unwarranted i nterference in an im- 
portant branch of trade; but the argument for the com- 
prehensive law and the total abolition of game traffic in 
the close season is found in the fact that if any game be 
sold. New York State game will be dealt in. The only 
way to close the market is to close it tight. And that is 
just what should be done, and must be done, if we are to 
prevent the illicit dealing in our own native birds. 
To extend the sale prohibition to game brought over 
the sea is not different in principle from forbidding the 
traffic in game brought in across a State line. 
It is announced that the case will be carried to the 
Appellate Division and, if necessary, to the Supreme 
Court of the United States. To get the point before the 
highest court for a final definite decision would be a result 
greatly to be hoped for. 
SOME PRIMITIVE PLANT FOODS.— III. 
In the more arid country of the farther Southwest, 
hunger and thirst are man’s most terrible enemies. Over 
much of the dry Southwest grows a tree — the algaroba 
or honey mesquite — which furnishes food to many people. 
The algaroba is a sturdy tree which requires little mois- 
ture and yields to hungry man great crops of the fruit 
known as the mesquite bean. These grow in pods six 
or seven inches long and full of a juicy pulp which is 
nourishing and pleasing -to the palate. Often the clusters 
of green pods hang from the branches in such quantities 
as to bend them down almost to breaking. After the 
beans have been gathered and dried they are pulverized 
when needed in mortars of wood or stone, and the meal 
so formed is cooked with water to make a bread. The 
screw bean, highly esteemed because of its sweetness, 
ripens a little later than the mesquite bean — early in July. 
There are other fruits, but not many; a plum or two, 
a cactus or two, the berry of the manzanita and the flow- 
ers and seeds of yucca, agave and wormwood are all 
eaten eagerly. Then there are the roots or the hearts of 
various plants which, when roasted, satisfy hunger and 
please the palate. 
In the mountains of California the acorn furnishes the 
staple food. These gathered in great quantities are 
roasted, hulled and dried. Pulverized to a meal, the bit- 
ter taste is leached from them by passing water through 
the meal, and later mixed with water, in the beautiful 
water-tight baskets of these Indians, this meal is boiled 
by the introduction of red hot stones and forms the prin- 
cipal food of the people. Still further to the north, along 
the seacoast, at the proper season of the year the Indians 
patrol the beaches and gather from them a certain sea- 
weed which helps them out in their living. That, too, is 
a land of berries, of which on account of the great pre- 
cipitation but few can be dried. They are largely eaten 
fresh or are pressed into cakes which keep for a long 
time, and during the winter are eaten with the oil of seal 
or salmon, forming a delicate dish. 
Coming back once more to the plains, to the Mississippi 
valley and the moist and fertile country that lies to the 
eastward, we find a number of other wild foods. 
A favorite root with the Indians was the wild sweet 
potato, found growing in the stream valleys at the foot 
of the bluffs in moist, but soft and rich ground. The 
plant somewhat resembles the sweet potato, though it is 
not so large. These roots, dug by the women, were eaten 
boiled or sometimes cooked with fat meat. 
The familiar prairie turnip, better known as pomme 
blanche, was gathered everywhere. So was the artichoke, 
so also was a large white bean which was eaten freely 
by the Indians, by the wild pigeons and by the mice. An 
Indian woman who was lucky enough to find the cache of 
the mice might get a peck of beans at a time without any 
labor. Usually the scattered beans had to be gathered 
from the ground. 
Under the water grow various roots, which perhaps be- 
long to forms of the arrowhead. These roots, growing 
in the mud at the bottom, are discovered by the women, 
who wade about in the water, feel the roots with their 
feet, and dig them out from the mud with the toes, when 
they rise to the surface. They are very good to eat. Both 
are gathered by the muskrats for winter use. The root 
of the yellow pond lily is also eaten, but is not greatly 
to be recommended to the civilized palate. 
A very well known, important and favorite article of 
food with the Indians who live where it grows is the 
famous wild rice, which is used in all their great feasts. 
The mode of gathering it is too well known to need de- 
scription. After being harvested it is dried on scaffolds, 
beneath which slow fires are built, and it is then 
cleansed from the husk by treading out. About a peck 
of the dried rice is placed in a hole in the earth about 
one foot wide and one foot deep, which is lined by a 
piece of buckskin. An Indian steps into the hole and 
holding himself steady by a stake planted in the ground, 
he jumps from one foot to another until the husks are 
separated from the grain, and the rice is ready to winnow. 
All the crops were preserved for winter use, the corn 
and roots being boiled and then dried in the sun or over 
the fire. Besides these, berries, nuts, maple sugar and 
various other foods derived from plants were used. In 
the gathering and preparation of almost all this vege- 
table food, the women had the principal part, but in pre- 
paring the rice the men also were active. The men also, 
as is well known, furnished the chief part of the flesh 
food for the people. The whole subject of aboriginal 
subsistence is one of very great interest. 
THE THIRD GENERATION. 
A THIRD generation of sportsmen is now reading the 
Forest and Stream. It is that of the sons of the sons 
of the generation of those who were reading it in the 
seventies. A third generation is shooting over the game 
fields and fishing in the trout brooks and the bass lakes. 
What this third generation is finding for its pains is what 
has been left to it by its forebears. 
The time which has elapsed, the passing of the men 
of that day, and the coming of those of this, the contrast 
between the conditions existing then and those existing 
now, give an opportunity of seeing some things in the 
retrospection more clearly and instructively than they ap- 
pear in the looking forward. 
In the conditions of the fields and the streams, as their 
supply may have been depleted or maintained, is demon- 
strated in a striking way the dependence of one genera- 
tion on the conduct of that which has gone before. We 
are accustomed to talk much of the duty we of the pres- 
ent owe to- the men who are to follow us with gun and 
rod, but the conviction of the average man in this respect 
is not so strong as to influence his conduct materially. 
He does not think of his followers ; his concern does not 
extend beyond the immediate future, the next year or the 
year after that. 
The feathered game and the big game supply of the 
West have been destroyed utterly throughout wide areas, 
and the extermination has been wrought by the sports- 
men who have shot over the country between the seven- 
ties and the present day. The conditions which the men 
of this generation find there are the conditions bequeathed 
to them by their fathers and their fathers’ fathers. 
It is simple enough now to see how different might 
have been the state of affairs if only the men of the 
immediately preceding generations of shooters had recog- 
nized some of the simple principles which have come to be 
accepted as axioms in our game protective systems ; if of 
the bounteous supply of wild life they had taken only for 
use and not for refuse ; if they had been voluntarily as 
provident and sparing of the game as the stricter laws 
of to-day compel us to be ; if they had more intelligently 
comprehended the rules of supply and demand, and had 
exercised in their use of the resources of the plains and 
the mountains temperance and discretion which would 
have conserved the stock for the benefit of those who 
were to follow. We can see all this clearly now, because 
we may judge by results. They did not see it then; it 
was not human nature that they should. 
In other affairs of life, in business and property interests, 
the rule of regard for the future holds good ; we provide 
for those who are to come after us ; we establish business 
and invest moneys and acquire lands and property and 
life insurance policies, and devote a large share of our 
thought and endeavors and accomplishing to providing 
for our successors. This has been the rule since man- 
kind was organized into communities. Our social system 
is the product of the exercise of these principles. And 
yet by a strange contrariety of conduct, when the sports- 
man’s resources of wild life are concerned, we too fre- 
quently pursue a course directly the reverse, and act as 
if this day was the end of it all, and there were to be no 
§itgces§or§ who|.e riglits we were bound to respegt, 
