160 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April, 1922 
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 
ADVISORY BOARD 
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL, NEW YORK, N. Y. 
CARL E. AKELEY, American! Museum of Natural Hiitory, New York. 
EDMUND HELLER. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 
WILFRED H. OSGOOD, Field Museum of Natural Historyj Chicago, lU. 
JOHN M. PHILLIPS, Pennsylvania Game Commission, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
CHARLES SHELDON, Washington, D. C. 
GEORGE SHIRAS, Sd, Washington, D. C. 
JOHN T. NICHOLS, American Museum of Natural History, New York. 
WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 
JOHN P. HOLMAN, Managing Editor 
TOM WOOD, Business Manager 
Nine East Fortieth Street, New York City 
Member of Audit Bureau of Circulation 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor 
recreation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
HOBBIES 
O NCE upon a time a lioy was born away back in 
a country village. As soon as he could walk, he 
began a companionship with the toads, the birds, 
bugs and insects ; he learned the names of the trees and 
weeds. By-and-bye he wandered in the fields and 
came to a brook; in it were fish, and he became a fisher- 
man, using a bent pin and string for tackle. Soon he 
caught a fish, and as fast as his fat little legs would 
carry him, he came home to show his mother the prize. 
From then on he caught more and more fish ; he learned 
where to look for them, and he traveled miles before and 
after school to new streams and new pools. 
As the years 'went by, the lad was drawn to the 
city ; in the great walled-in canyons of brick and stone 
he fought the fight for gold and power and in time be- 
came a prosperous and influential man. He gave his 
entire time to business. His brain more than his bod}" 
ground out his success, but soon the gray hairs cropped 
out about his temples — the work of years wrinkled his 
brow, and one day his physician called a halt, and he 
was ordered away to rest. 
He remembered the little town amongst the hills and 
journeyed there again in his big motor car with liveried 
attendants. Fie saw the streams he had fished when a 
boy : he heard the birds but he had forgotten their 
n?mes and the names of the trees. He had forgotten 
how to play. 
The saddest of all creatures are the men who have 
no hobbies to ride — who have wandered so far into the 
jungles of a golden maze that they have lost what en- 
joyment life once held for them. Brain fag surely will 
come to the man who does not plan his play hours along 
with his business. Hitch your hobby outside of your 
office door and let the good old horse buck and prance, 
impatient for you to ride. 
You don’t have to journey to the far ends of the earth 
for your pleasure — a range of hills is almost within view 
of your office window, where the tinkling stream that 
has finally found its way to your office ice-cooler holds 
a trout or two for you. There is a place to pitch a tent 
only a little way back in those hills, where you can learn 
to build a fire and cook a fish — where a big old owl will 
hoot a welcome to you as you walk through the pines, 
and where you can sleep away dull care as you did 
when a boy. Or take a dog and a gun and go to a 
clump of silver birches where you can test your skill 
and bag a woodcock or two. 
Hitch the hobby to your office door to-morrow — let 
him have a loose rein as you ride ; he will carry you 
back to that brook where as a boy you fished with bent 
pin and twine. 
The blue sky that now canopies the skyscraper where 
you hear the phone bells and the typewriter keys that 
jangle your nerve-strings, will furnish a blue skylight 
and a rainy day for you as you ride, and, studded with i 
stars, will cover you when you and your hobby-horse 
need restful sleep at the journey’s end. i 
■ 
SAVE THE RED’WOODS LEAGUE 
S ubstantial progress in the movement to save 
the Redwoods of California is announced by the ' 
Save the Redwoods League in its Annual Report 
for 1921 w'hich was issued recently. To date approxi- 
mately half a million dollars have been applied to the 
saving of Redwoods in Humboldt County. The greater 
part of this amount has been secured during the vear 
1921. ' i 
Foremost among the accomplishments of the past ^ 
year was the securing of the State appropriation of 
$300,000 to save some of the finest Redwood Groves I 
along the State Highway in the basin of the south fork 
of the Eel River. Linder the direction of the State 
Forestry Board the plan for saving- groves with this 
appropriation has been completed; 
During the year the League itself has deeded to the ; 
State of California 263 acres of Redwood land acejuired 
with funds donated by its members. In addition, the i 
State has acquired title to pieces of Redwood timber 
land previously purchased through appropriations by 
Humboldt County and donations from Flon. AVm. Kent 
and Hon. Stephen T. Mather. All of these pieefes are 
located in the basin of the south fork of the Eel River. 
The League, during the past year, has increased its i 
membership to 4,105. During the coming year renewed 
efforts will be made to save the groves immediately in 
the path of lumbering operations. It is for this reason I 
that the Redwoods League urges every citizen who be- ' 
lieves in preserving our natural endowment to join the 
organization in working for these things: greater under- 
standing throughout the nation of the need of preserving s 
representative areas of Redwoods ; donations with which ■ 
to purchase Redwoods; the establishment of memorial i 
groves by organizations and individuals, and, at the [ 
proper time, action by counties, the state and the nation , 
to preserve the Big Trees. | 
BIRD REFUGES 
O N the average there are in the United States only 
about two birds to the acre, but where they are 
protected and encouraged it has been demonstrat- 
ed that a very great increase over the normal bird popu- 
lation can be secured. No fewer than 59 pairs to the 
acre is the number reached in the most successful of 
these attempts reported. Valuing the services of birds 
at 10 cents each — an estimate ridiculously low, but used 
to insure a safe minimum — the birds of the United 
States prevent an increase in the annual damage done 
by insects of more than $400,000,000. | 
A particular farm may not have so large a bird popula- i|j 
tion as it should, and therefore may not be deriving the *1 
benefit which is its due. The most effective means of | 
increasing the number of birds is protection, and pro- jl 
tection in its best sense is afforded by the establishment I 
of bird refuges. 
