472 
September, 1919 
FOREST AND S T R E A :\I 
FOREST STREAM 
FORTY-ETGHTH YEAR 
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 
GOVERNING BOARD: 
GEORGE BIRD GRIKNELL, New York, N. Y. 
CARL E. AKELEY, American Museum of Natural History, New York. 
FRANK S. DAGGETT, Museum of Science, Los Angeles, Cal. 
EDMUND HELLER, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 
C. HART MERRIAM, Biological Survey, Washington, D. C. 
WILFRED H. OSGOOD, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 111. 
JOHN M. PHILLIPS, Pennsylvania Game Commission, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
CHARLES SHELDON, Washington, D. C. 
GEORGE SHIRAS, 3rd, Washington, D. C. 
WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 
JOHN P. HOLMAN, Associate Editor 
TOM WOOD, Manager 
Nine East Fortieth Street, New York City 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
atudiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor rec- 
reation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
PURE WATER NEEDED 
prOR years now the newspapers have had much to 
^ say about the importance of pure food, and legis- 
lative bodies have passed many laws, with the al- 
leged purpose of protecting the public against foods 
that were adulterated or injurious. Yet compara- 
tively little is done to preserve the purity of our 
waters. It is only occasionally that we hear of dis- 
ease resulting from the use of impure water or of 
the prosecution of men who sell milk from cows that 
have drunk such water. Few things are more im- 
portant to the well being of Americans than the 
purity of their drinking water, yet efforts to keep 
pure the streams from which this water is drawn 
meet constant opposition or hopeless inertia. Twenty 
years ago the late Wm. Austin Wadsworth, then 
President of the New York Forest, Fish and Game 
Commission, wrote about this, words forceful 
enough to have stirred even a New York Legisla- 
ture. He said : 
“This is a matter of vital importance and not to 
be dismissed as affecting only the lives of some 
fishes, the pleasure of some anglers, or the dividends 
of some pulp mills. We are a water drinking people, 
and we are allowing every brook to be defiled. Na- 
ture provides that they should be kept pure by ani- 
mals which feed on the dead matters which fall into 
them, but the chemicals with which they are pol- 
luted can destroy all forms of life, so that every 
beast which dies on the mountain will soon roll 
down into our reservoirs, pickled in acids which no 
fish or bacteria can touch and live. It is not neces- 
sary to destroy or hamper any industry in order to 
prevent pollution of water courses. What is really 
needed is to check the criminal selfishness of those 
who would rather poison their fellow citizens with 
their offal than to spend a few dollars to take care 
of it.” 
Now — after twenty years — the New York Legis- 
lature has passed a bill appropriating $10,000 to 
enable the State Conservation Commission to in- 
vestigate the vital subject of stream pollution. 
It is a matter of course that cities, tovms, mills, 
factories and foundries turn their waste into the 
nearest stream. This is done to save trouble and 
expense and with no thought whatever of the pos- 
sible consequences to the public. It is the easiest 
way. 
Streams polluted by receiving the waste of tovms 
or of factories cannot furnish water fit for use by 
human beings. The absence of fish from many 
such streams shows this. If the water is unfit for 
fish to live in, it cannot be fit for men to drink. 
Hardly an adult man but can remember when the 
waters of the lower courses of rivers with which he 
is familiar were available either for drinking, for 
bathing or for fishing, but today — in countries of 
abundant settlement, frequent factories and large 
towns — such water conditions do not prevail. 
Not so many years ago the shad fishing industry 
in the Hudson River was of great economic im- 
portance, and every spring and summer vast quan- 
tities of this toothsome fish were caught during 
their run up stream toward their spavming ground ; 
but, at the present day, the shad scarcely enter that 
river. For many, many miles from its mouth it has 
become a vast sewer, and today we even read that 
the use of ice taken from its upper reaches is dan- 
gerous, because frozen from polluted water. 
Is it not worth the while of the American people 
seriously to ponder this matter and matters of 
kindred significance? The abuse will be stopped 
when the public wishes it stopped and not before. 
Yet people have been writing about this for a long 
time! 
Many years ago a number of earnest and some- 
what persistent men devoted much time to writing 
public exhortations urging the importance of foregt 
preservation. This preaching went on for a long 
time and their sermons seemed to make no impres- 
sion on the public — there were no apparent results. 
But suddenly, and without warning, results ap- 
peared, and that fine old soldier, Gen. John W. Noble, 
then Secretary of the Interior, set aside the first 
public forest reservation and founded our present 
system. 
It is trite to say that almost anything can be ac- 
complished by sticking to it. The work of fighting 
this crime of stream pollution is one of the tasks 
that ought to be stuck to. 
We have just passed through a great war and 
problems of enormous difficultj^ crowd about us on 
every hand, but to be in a condition to face these 
problems, and still more to solve them, we must do 
everjThing in our power to guard the public health. 
Nothing is more important to such preservation than 
the purity of the water that we drink. 
THE SPORTSMAN AND THE RABBIT 
MO animal sought as game, for sport or food, has 
brought about more discussion or legislative ac- 
tion in the eastern states than the common gray 
rabbit or cottontail. Why? Because the economic 
importance of this animal is not realized by either 
the sportsman, meat hunter or the farmer. 
Consider first the farmer’s side of the question. 
He is entitled to it, being tax payer on the territorj^ 
the rabbit frequents. Rabbits may damage his 
young orchards by gnawing the bark and even gird- 
ling the trees. Some of his field crops, especially 
cabbage, may also be selected as a luxury to which 
