July, 1922 
309 
words: a 20 ga. gun, properly bored, 
will give a pattern sufficient to kill the 
game sought, and at a velocity as great, 
or greater, than the ordinary 12 ga. Of 
course if the quantity of shot is to be a 
test of the efficiency of the gun, nothing 
can compare with the 10 bore using the 
English load of lj4 oz. 
If we want the excessive velocities of 
the extreme 12 ga. load of dr. and 
H4 of shot, we get it in the 20 by reduc- 
ing the shot charge to ^ oz., retaining 
the 20 gr. load, and at the same time 
reducing recoil and breech pressure, and 
we get a fast, snappy load that will ac- 
count for ducks over decoys at 35 yards 
with a regularity that is surprising. 
Let's do justice to the 20. Feed it the 
right kind of fodder, point it straight, 
and it will do the business as well, or 
better, than the average 12, and with 
much more satisfaction to the shooter. 
Geo. G. Clough, Florida. 
CROWS AND COUGARS 
Dear Forest and Stream: 
C OUGARS are a great menace to the 
farmers in the Sooke district, Van- 
couver Island ; they destroy a large num- 
ber of sheep every year and the loss 
amounts to quite a large sum. Bells have 
been tried on the sheep in an effort to 
frighten the cougars away, but they have 
not proved of much avail. 
Any means of locating these destruc- 
tive animals are welcomed by the 
farmers, but quite recently a warning 
came from quite a new quarter. 
Crows are known to be very destruc- 
tive and are considered useless. A bounty 
is offered in some places for each bird 
killed, but now they have shown one 
good point. A hundred or more of these 
birds gave the alarm that a cougar was 
near, by circling and cawing. The cou- 
gar was found and shot. It was a fine 
specimen, measuring eight feet six inches. 
If it had not been for the crows prob- 
ably a large number of sheep would have 
been destroyed before the cougar was 
finally killed. It is to be hoped that 
this won’t be the last time that the 
crows prove to be useful in this way. 
A few years ago a cougar attacked 
two children; it is the only time that 
they have been known to attack human 
beings on \'^ancouver Island. The cou- 
gars usually confine themselves to the 
woods, only coming out at night to take 
the sheep. If there is plenty of food 
in the forests they do not venture near 
a habitation. It is very seldom that they 
are seen in the daytime. 
R. E. Rogers, B. C., Canada. 
THE BETTS TRESPASS LAW 
Dear Forest and Stream: 
jWlY opinion, given a year ago, that the 
Betts trespass law would only in- 
crease disrespect and contempt for all 
law has become positive knowledge. The 
^"olstead act was immediately nullified in 
the rural districts by a subservient at- 
torney-general, and the trespass law 
seems to have been just as quickly 
brought into contempt by the very fa- 
natics who originated it. 
To be sure an enforced sobriety existed 
FOREST AND STREAM 
in the rural districts last winter, but 
that was due to the total failure of last 
year’s apple crop. The only cheap and 
ready substitute for the apple thus far 
discovered is the elderberry, which in this 
section ripens abundantly in fence rows 
and along creeks and swamp borders, and 
last summer attracted a small army of 
pickers. 
The greatest disrespect for the Betts 
trespass law exists among those who 
were loudest in demanding its passage. 
Naturally it would be supposed that 
among farmers signed hunting permits 
would be exchanged, but in every in- 
stance that has come to my notice where 
one farmer has made application to an- 
other for his signature to one of the 
printed Conservation Commission hunt- 
ing permits, it has been refused and oral 
permission given. Dozens of cases have 
come to my notice where young men have 
accepted this form of consent in good 
faith and in every instance when the 
hunter was intercepted by a game pro- 
tector or state trooper he had to submit 
to arrest and trial by jury for breaking 
the trespass law. Just what reason the 
landowners have for teaching contempt 
for a law they were at some pains to 
write into the statute books it is difficult 
to determine. 
As a deterrent for the alien hunter and 
killer of song birds the trespass law is 
not a success. The alien and the city 
sportsmen who were blamed for all in- 
fractions and against whom the new law 
was directed are still very much in evi- 
dence and juries are human. As re- 
ported in the daily press the first and 
only case brought to trial in eastern New 
York under the law which gives a land- 
owner an opportunity to mulct a hunter 
$50 for trespass resulted in a prompt 
acquittal by a jury in a Hoosick Falls 
justice’s court. 
The results thus far accomplished by 
the new trespass law would not warrant 
the election of a legislature of farmers, 
unless there arose a real need of some- 
thing more like the Sullivan law or the 
Volstead act. 
I noticed that Mr. Betts introduced a 
measure to license all fishermen over six- 
teen years of age. What next will Mr. 
Betts present for our consideration ? Mr. 
Betts has shown us that there are new 
kinds of prohibition and new sources of 
revenue not heretofore dreamed of in our 
philosophy. W. W. Christman, 
New York. 
THE LURE OF THE POTOMAC 
Dear Forest and Stream: 
P erhaps no dty in the country is 
as rich as Washington, the Nation’s 
capital, in opportunity for outdoor life — 
opportunity to delight the heart of any- 
one who enjoys the open; feeling the 
sway of a light but sturdy canoe; the 
pull of a bass on a line; a plunge in 
cooling waters, or the general restfulness 
of a day in the woods that abound near 
by. But a short walk and one may find 
himself transposed from noisy, crowded 
city streets to wide fields of green, grow- 
ing things; to high bluffs overlooking a 
beautiful river; and finally, to the banks 
of this river. 
Tumbling out of the Allegheny Moun- 
tains of West Virginia, the north branch, 
about 110 miles long, and the south 
branch, about 140 miles long, unite fif- 
teen miles southeast of the city of Cum- 
berland, Maryland, to form the main 
body of the Potomac. It then runs north- 
eastward, forming the boundary between 
Maryland and West Virginia, and below 
the town of Hancock, Maryland, flows 
southeastward to Harper’s Ferry, West 
Virginia, where it passes through a grand 
and picturesque gorge in the Blue Ridge 
Mountains. Here it is joined by its main 
tributary, the beautiful Shenandoah. The 
Potomac forms the boundary between 
Maryland and Virginia from Harper’s 
Ferry to its mouth. 
Eleven miles above the city of Wash- 
ington, as it winds about on its journey 
The rapids of the Potomac River at Great Falls 
