56 
FOREST AND STREAM 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 
Devoted to Field and Aquatic SronTs, PpaoticalNaturalHietory, 
FlSH CULTURE, THE PROTECTION OF GAME. PRESERVATION OF FORESTS, 
AND THE INOUI .CATION IN MEN AND WOMEN OF A HEALTHY INTEREST 
d Oot-door Recreation and Study : 
PUBLISHED BY 
forest and Stream publishing §omgagg, 
17 PRAT HAM STREET, (CITY HALL SQUARE) NEW YORK, 
[Poet Office Box 2882.] 
Term*, Five Dollar* a Year, Strictly In Advance. 
A discount of twenty per cent, allowed for five copies and upwards. 
AdverttalnK Hate*. 
Jn regular advertising columns, nonpareil type. 12 lines to the Inch, 26 
cents per Hue. Advertisements on outside page. 40 cents per line. Rending 
notices, 60 cents per line. Advertisements in double column 26 per cent 
extra Where advertisements arc inserted over 1 month, n discount ol 
10 per cent, will be mode; over three mouths, 20 per cent ; over six 
months, 30 per cent. 
NEW ENTERPRISES. 
I T Is a peculiarity of our people, particularly those who 
settle In hitherto unopened districts, to ignore the well 
worn paths of industry, and by the introduction of new 
schemes and pursuits, to seek to find a rapid road to com- 
petence, A paragraph in the San Francisco Bulletin, to the 
effect that the Angora goat enterprise in California has not 
realized the wonderful profits anticipated, and the total 
failjre of the attempts at sericulture in the same State, are 
strong cases in poiut. 
At the first introduction of the Angora, the most extrava- 
gant expectations were formed ns to the results to follow. 
Enormous prices were pnid for rams, and even graded 
goats, lifted hut a stage above the common native variety, 
were bought with avidity. Cashmere shawls were to be 
brought within the reach of every one, and the gossamer 
fabrics of Bummer por Chudali wero to be as common as 
the products of the looms of Paisley. But alas! these an- 
ticipations were not to be realized; either the goats did not 
produce as was anticipated, or dealers found themselves 
unable to use the fleeces in competition with the natives of 
the East, and those who engaged in the business have been 
obliged to sell out and betake themselves to the drudgery 
of farming as a means of livelihood. 
Six years since the Legislature of California passed a bill 
giving premiums for the planting of mulberry trees and 
the production of silk cocoons. Hundreds went into the 
enterprise. Large areas of ground in every favorable lo- 
cality from Sacramento to Los Angeles were planted with 
the different varieties of the Morns family. Eggs of the 
silk-worm were procured from China and Japan, and prob- 
NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1875. 
To Correspondents. 
All communications whatever, whether relating to business or literary 
correspondence, must be addressed to The Forest and Stream Pub- 
lishing Company. Personal or private letters of course excepted. 
All communicolions Intended for publication must be accompanied with 
eal name, as a guaranty of good faith. Names will not be published If 
objection be made. No anonymous contributions will be regarded. 
Article* relating to any topic within the scope of this paper are solicited. 
We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 
Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor us with brief 
noto* of their movements and transactions, as it is the aim of this paper 
to become a medium of useful and reliable information between gentle- 
men sportsmen from one end of the connlTy to the other ; and they will 
find our columns a destrablo medium for advertising announcements. 
The Publishers of Forest and Stream aim to merit and secure the 
patronage and countenance of that portion of the community whose re- 
fined intelligence enables them to properly appreciate and enjoy all that 
Is beautiful In Nature. It will pander to no depraved tastes, nor pervert 
tho legitimate sports of land and water to those base uses which always 
tend to make them unpopular with the virtuous and good. No advertise- 
ment or business notice of an Immoral character will be received on any 
erras ; and nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 
may not be read with propriety In tho home circle. 
Wo cannot bo responsible for tho dereliction of the mall service, If 
money remitted to us Is lost. 
Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday of each week, If possible. 
CHARLES II ALLOCK. Editor. 
WILLIAM C. HARRIS, Business fllanager. 
Northwebtehn Texan. — The Topeka Common wealth pub- 
lishes two letters from n correspondent at Fort Sill, I. T., 
announcing the arrival of Gen. Miles at that post, and de- 
scribing the trip of his command over tho Llano Estacado, 
or Staked Plains. As a portion of the ground covered has 
been mentioned as included lu Col. McCarty’s itinerny, the 
description is interesting. On the 28lh of December Gen. 
Miles broke camp on the Canadian River and traveled due 
south to the Tule, the north branch of the Red River, and 
across the Staked Plains, a distance of over one hundred 
miles. Here the course was changed to the eastward, and 
a thorough scout of the country made. Four or five hun- 
dred Indians— Comanches and Kiowas— were driven into 
Fort Sill, and the march, made in the dead of Winter, over 
a country never ventured upon by whites at this 6uason, is 
one of the most remarkable on record. The sight of the 
Wachita mountains was a glorious relief from tho terrible 
monotony of the Staked Plains, which, almost unendur- 
able at any time, are particularly so in Winter, when the 
question of how to keep from freeziug is i.n important 
one. Buffalo chips were not to be had, and the only fuel 
was that hauled in the wagons. From the headwaters of 
the Red River to Wachita mountains the couutry is rough 
and broken, and almost destitute of vegetation. The soil 
Is a kind of red clay, which seems to produce only the mes- 
qulte brush. The creek bottoms are narrow, and almost 
destitute of timber. The country to the north and south 
of the mountains Is entirely different. The writer describes 
it as like arriving from a desert to a paradise. Their great- 
est altitude docs not exceed 600 feet ; the surface rocky, and 
no timbor is to be seen on thrm from the southern side. 
Numerous small streams of pure water gush out from 
either side. These streams are all supplied with an abun- 
dance of timber— walnut, oak, hackberry, hickory, and 
other varieties. The country breaks off into rolling prai- 
rie. and is covered with a rich growth of vegetation. The 
severity prevailing elsewhere has extended ibis Winter to 
the Wachita country, but tho climate geuerally is mild, 
equable, and free from malaria. 
—Tho St. Augustine (Florida) Press of February 20lh 
notes the following arrrivals in that city Admiral James 
Alden, of Washington, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, and E. R. 
Wilbur, Esq., of the N. Y. Forest and Stream. The Press 
says-.— “Mr. Wilbur is making a tour through the 8tate, aud 
working generally for tho interests of thy valuable paper 
he represents. ’’ 
ably a million or more dollars invested in the business. 
Barnng some little difficulty in the way of disease among 
the worms, caused by feeding on young and immature 
leaves, everything flourished; the State paid the bounty, 
and it appeared that a bonanzti had been found in silk cul- 
ture. Eggs aud cocoons multiplied, but remained on hand. 
The French and Italian manufacturers who were awaiting 
with eagerness for the new market did not appear. There 
was no machinery in the State to reel tho silk from the co- 
coons, and no skilled labor to do it had the machinery been 
forthcoming. The business languished, flickered, and went 
out. The State Legislature rescinded the bounty, and the 
impecunious silk growers were glad to grub out their mul- 
berries and plant potatoes in their place. 
It is now proposed to grow the tea-plant extensively in 
the same and other States, and enthusiasts would have us 
believe that we can soon dispense with the Chinese leaf, 
and on our own soil produce the delectable beverage that 
cheers without inebriating. 
The moral of all this is, that our people, while rushing 
into these enterprises which promise so weil, on paper, 
overlook the great question of labor upon which in reality 
success hinges. Admitting an equally favorable condition 
of soil and climate, the fact yet remains that in such indus- 
tries as require large numbers of laborers, either skilled or 
crude, the country which can furnish the labor at one or 
two dollars per month can never fear competition with that 
wherein it commands from thirty to forty. Added to this, 
it is not the practice to follow these pursuits, particularly 
silk culture, on the large scale with which it has been at- 
tempted in California. In China and Japan each family 
in certain districts produces a modicum of the raw mate- 
rial, which is gathered by collectors on their periodical 
trips. The labor also falls on the women and children, 
and is only a portion, not a speciality, of the family 
life. 
No one who has not seen it in operation can realize the 
amount of detail connected with tea culture. The pick- 
ing of the leaves, the sorting afterward, the rolling to 
exude the juice, and the subsequent firing of those sorts 
intended for exportation. Most of the work, so far, is 
carried ou by children; the picking, and particularly in 
the green tea districts, (so called,) where so many differ- 
ent kinds go to form a chop, the sorting is done usually by 
girls, whose manipulation is more delicate. The wages 
of these people is about six cents per day, and for the men 
who make the boxes, fit the leads in them, and print and 
paste the characteristic figures, perhaps a trifle more. 
These same remarks apply equally as well to the Angora 
goat experiments. We have neither the labor or the ma- 
chinery to work up the material when produced, and 
exportation is out of the question. Tho finest cashmere 
shawls, erroneously called camels'-hair, are made by hand, 
and each one represents, perhaps, the labor of years ou the 
part of one family. If the settlers iu our new States and 
Territories will confine themselves to feasible and valua- 
ble enterprises, endeavoring to produce only those things 
for which there is a certain market, the sooner will they 
attain the competence at which they aim. The fable of 
the hare and tortoise holds good in agricultural as well as 
in other pursuits of life, and haste to become rich by new 
and untried experiments is more likely to lead to poverty 
and disgrace. 
— Hurst’6 Stereoscopic Studies of Natural History, which 
we offer for sale, are much sought for by 6portsmeu for the 
special purpose of using as copies to paint decoys from. 
As they are copied and colored from life, there can be 
nothing more suitable. 
—Our correspondent “B.,” on p. 409, is mistaken when 
ho says N. W. Clark is one of tho Stale Fish Commissioners 
for Michigan. It is John Clark, Esq., of Ecorse, that is 
the Commissioner. 
CONICAL BASE SHELLS. 
T HE entertaining letter which we publish this week 
from our valuable correspondent, Mr. Wilkinson, of 
the Patent Office, Washington, will possess much interest 
for those gentlemen who, through our columns, have ven- 
tilated their supposed inventions of conical bases for shells. 
It may be a matter of surprise to them to learn that their 
theories on the subject are neither new or original, and 
that the question had been agitated as early as the year 
1600. Furthermore, that patents to the number of fifteen 
or twenty have already been issued from the Patent Office 
for alleged improvements on the same invention. We 
would suggest careful experiments, aud inventors must 
bear iu mind the rebuffs and discouragement which almost 
invariably follow any attempt to, improve upon old 
customs:— 
Washington, D. C., Februury 18, 1873. 
Editor Forest and Stream:— 
Permit me through your columns to answer an inquiry that comes 
from sportsmen In different pBrts of the country. If I thus aid iu 
answering similar letters sent you about the sume matters, why, so much 
the better. 
Singularly enough a score or so of Intelligent BportBmen, some of them 
from places as distant fiom ench other us Maine and Iowa, have simul- 
taneously conceived the ideu that it would be of immense advantage, lu 
both shot guns and rilles, to have a conical base for the powder to rest 
upon, and that this base could he easily and cheaply supplied to the 
ordinary metal or paper shell cartridge. This seems the more remark- 
able when we k >o\v that this matter of the conical base has been agi- 
tated for rather more than a hundred years, and that during the last ten 
years a score or more of patents have been issued in this country for 
various methods of attaching the conical base to the metal or paper 
tube, of which the shells arc made. 
Still more remarkable is k when wc find that as yet the whole thing is 
a mere inntler of theory and speculation, and that no reliable and care- 
fully conducted experiments have given any dnla upon which lo base 
claims of superiority for this buse over others. The fundamental idea 
seems, from a record of the matter, to have been to secure n constantly 
increasing area of combustion for a part of the length of the chamber, 
and for the purpose of lessening the recoil. Stonehenge, accepted, I 
think, ».s good authority, states that he has repeatedly tried breeches of 
varying shapes, including the conical, with the snme barrel, charges, «fcc., 
and with a constant result, which seemed cleurly lo establish the fact 
that the peculiar form of the base was Immaterial. 
Many a sportsman has written that he has found that such cartridges 
shoot belter by one-fifth or onc-Blxth, or something of that sort, but if 
any of your readers can refer lo any reliable experiments mathematically 
demonstrating the point, he will confer a great favor upon sportsmen 
who, having taken it for granted that conical bases give better results, 
are spending their time and money in experimenting upon different ways 
of applying them to shells. No mere theory should be allowed to take the 
place of carefully and scientifically conducted experiments. 
We are all well aware of the tenacity with which u practical unscien- 
tific man clings to a preconceived notion, assuming mere speculative 
theories ns facts proven beyond a peradventnre. 
For example: it took years of actual use, and no end of argument and 
persuasion to Induce blacksmiths to concede that n machine-made horse 
shoe unit was worth anything nt nil. The facts were, that the most 
severe tests proved that the machine-made noils were better in every 
possible way, but to this day country blacksmiths waste time and money 
in making their crude and clumsy nuils by hand. A case nearer home 
to the sportsman is the comparatively recent invention of the percussion 
nipple in place of the old flint lock. For long years practical sports- 
men. and some of them educated Englishmen of great ability, refused 
to use the new percussion nipple ns uot giving so good results when the 
facts were as yon all very well know. 
It is fair to conclude, then, that sportsmen will continue experiment- 
ing upon the conical bases, and every now and then one will think he 
has a fortune in it. It may confer a fuvor upon such to gire tbrongh 
your columns some notice of the various patents already granted In this 
direction. Twice within the month I have unswered the friendly inquiry 
as to whether a broad patent could not be obtained for making a conical 
base, (in use in 1D90, A. D..) und several times as to whether a broad 
claim could not be allowed for cheaply adding a conical base to the 
ordinary paper shell. 
A favorite way of uniting a conical base to a paper shell has been by 
placing an Interior concaved metal washer within the hollow of a metallic 
base or end. The end of tho paper tube is then caught between the 
rims of the two metal pieces and the nipple screwed through both, con- 
fining all three securely together. See the patent of Thomas Culleu, of 
Sun Francisco, Jauuary 7th, 18H8, No. 72,982. 
Another method of connecting Ihe base parts with a metal shell is to 
screw the outer metal buse or end which carries the nipple into the in- 
terior washer. See pateut of F. E. Boyd. February 3d, 1870, No. 
99,528. 
Sometimes the breech is made double concave, Ihe nipple forming an 
integral part of it, thns making of the three pieces a single one, which is 
then secured in the tube. See patent of Logan and Eldridge, Dec. 7th, 
1869, No. 97,537. 
The various methods of cheaply giving a base of this form to the 
paper shell include molding the base of papier-mache, or any analogous 
material, and dropping it to the base of the tube. 
One method is to take a strip of paper, which has one straight edge 
and the other running at a small angle from the first, so as to give a con- 
stant bat gradual increase of width. If now this puper he colled npon 
itself, commencing at the narrow end, it will leave a cone-shaped de- 
pression in its centre. This paper thus coiled is to form the inner base 
of the paper shell and rests upon the usual flungod metallic head. See 
patent of D. E. Williams, No. 108,543, Oct., 18th. 1870. 
In addition to the above the following patents have been granted for 
similar devices:— 
See English pateut of Schneider, No. 2,203 of 1861, and American 
patents of J. Ryder, Nov. 5, 1867; E. C. Dunniug, No. 34,713, March 18, 
1862; W. II. Wills. No. 45,292, Nov. 29, 1861; S. Crispin, No. 42,329, 
April 12, 1864; T. L. Sturtevant. No. 53,501, March 27, 1866; Depew & 
Slatcher, No. 97,615, Dec. 7, 1869; F. Wohlgemuth, No. 96,873, Nov. 2, 
1869; S W. Wood, No. 132,227. Oct. 15, 1869; S. W. Wood, No. 144,011, 
Oct. 28, 1873. 
Any one desiring can order copies of these patents from the Patent 
Office and thus post himself more fully. 
Enough has here been given to inform sportsmen that the chances are 
very small of obtaining any very broad patents for applying conical 
bases, und that the best he can do will be to experiment upon the 
cheapest aud most practical ways of doing it, prowling that he has first 
satisfied himself upon the question of the utility of such forms of 
bases. 
As the reader may by this time Imagine.I am not a practical " shootisl ," 
and have no pet theories to advance. Personally I had rather, as 1 did 
last Summer with a salmon of twenty-five pounds fast to my line, run for 
half au hour up and down banks among sharp rocks, and now and then 
up to tho waist tn the ice cold waters of a Canada river, than to shoot a 
steamer load of the noblest of game. A. G. Wilkinson 
—Green pea9, tomatoes and cabbage are plentiful in 
Florida, and wo hear of an occasional water-pjelon as far 
South os Enterprise. 
