1875 
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119 
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Truth Before Manners. 
( LA.f»EMexT, PJ. 11., June 19, 
Editor Hod and Gvs: 
Like “Lex** I believe in rera ffrafii*, but be is all in the 
wrong, when he quotes a welLknowu contemoorary of jonrs as de- 
liberately saying there were over two hundred dogs at Watertown, 
This is what it does say in speaking of the coining bench show at 
Mineola: “If, as|we are informed, the nninber of doganow on exhi 
bition at so remote a place as Watertown exceeds two hundred, 
•urely Mineola, within an hour or two of such large cities as New- 
ark, New York, Jersey City and Brooklyn, ought to look for ai least 
five hundred.” This was in type in all probability, bi-fore the offi- 
cial notice was received, as in the same number there is a full list of 
the dogs on exhibition, which “Lex” gives at snly 57, while there 
were some 70, prefaced by the following: “The nsmbei of dogs on 
exhibitien is 70, which, when it it rcmcrabcrod that the exhibition 
is one solely for banting dogs, cannot bo otheririse than considered 
a great success.” Now, certainly, this coming as it doea from 
heiulquartera, ia not likely to mislead or misrestf’csent. There is no 
doubt but that the Springfield shew was the largest ever held in 
this countiy, aod the Rod and Gnu Clnh ef that city has every rea- 
son to be proud of its sucess. Springfield haa been noted for its 
success in the equine world and why should it not become so in the 
canine. Springfield was the first to hold a horec show, and the first 
to hold a dog show in old New England, and te make a grand suc- 
cess of each. May the latter become as well established as the 
former. To “Le.x” whom, if I’m not mistaken in the person, I met 
at Watertown, let me say, if you ever come this way, please don’t 
fall to give me a call. “Nisirod.” 
“Slauqhter not Sport.” 
Omaha, Juxh 12. 
Editor Rod and Gun: 
An article entitled “Slaughter not Sport,** appeared in Tmi Rod 
AND Gun of May 29th, wbi>h is calculated te mislead peraons unac- 
quainted with the circumstances. 
I have often thought if we were to always examine ourselres in a 
mirror before criticising the looks of our neighbor, both would be 
spared from unjust comparison, and often inmerited criticism. 
The benighted heathen, in all times, has enlUted the synipaihies 
and solicitude of mankind, and there are many wonderful instances 
of self-sacrifice in the great work of hu civilfzation and salvation, 
and y^t, all around us there is a greater need and a broader field for 
home missionary work. Let us first cast the beam out of our own 
eyes that we may see clearly to cast the moto from our brother’s, is 
as true and applicable to-day as it was two thousand years ago. 
A year ago last winter the laws of Nebraska permitted the trap- 
ping of prairie chickens, (IHnnated Givuni) between the 1st of Au- 
gust and the following April. The eastern markets were wide open 
to them. Hundreds of dozens were trapped by the farmers and 
sold to commission men for shipment. Tliey brought them into 
Omaha by wagon loads, usually dead, but frequently alive. Two 
gontlemen, and genuine sportsmen, were to engage in a friendly 
pigeon match, but lacking the number to make up the complement 
of birds for the occasion, purchased a sufficient number of live prai- 
rie chickens “to fill, ’ as the saying is. 
A report of the match found its way into the daily papers, unex- 
plained of course: and thereupon some Foreign Mis.-ionary took up 
the “cudgel” and Omaha sportsmen were treated to a very enthu- 
siastic chastisement, for this very “unsnortsmanlike outrage.” It 
was thought advisable to let it pass. Omaha sportsmen don’t now' 
seek to uphold any act that shall tend to destroy those noble game 
birds, nor would either of the gentlemen who made that match ; nor 
was there anything wrong in the act, <<<. It could not and did 
not encourage trapping prairie chickens, nor their unjustifiable des- 
truction. It was a favorable eastern market that was the incentive 
to the trapping business. Thanks be to the Omaha sportsman! 
That bird law has been repealed, trapping made unlawful, and the 
season lo close January 1st instead of April. 
1 w’ill venture the assertion that no sportsmen or other set of men 
anywhere, will be found more uncompromising in the observance 
and enforcement of Hie gi me law’s, as well as all that pertains to 
true sportsmanship, than the members of the Oraaha^ Sportsmen’s 
Club. Now, whether the author of this recent article was also the 
author of the former one, I know not, and care less. Ue has cer- 
tainly endorsed it in his recent wholesale denunciation of Omaha 
sportsmen, of a matter he knows evidently, but little of. It seems 
to require a pretty tine sight to see any palpable degreeof difference 
between the snooting of a goose, a duck, a snipe, or curlew in 
spring and fall, or while fly ng south or north, excepting as lo cur- 
lew since the mouths of April and May are the only months in 
which they can be shot at all in Nebraska. All the other birds 
named in “Wolverine’s” article breed in the far north, excepting 
the wood duck, and tlie Canada grouse and mallard rarely. We 
will fie infinitely obliged to that gentleman if he will inform us just 
where the line is that divides between rest and reproduction w ith 
these birds, and by wliat sign or indication in a flock of geese, or 
wisp of snipe, wc may discriminate between those that are on their 
wa/ to Alaska, and those that may “nest-hido” in Nebraska. We 
don't mean to violate any law. It sounds v'^ry well to talk about 
the destruction of game during the breeding season. Nobody w'dl 
take issue with that. But how long before the breeding season be- 
gins must we cease to shoot birds of passage? Shaft it be one 
month, two months, or six months? It has been thought that legis- 
lation should be directed to the protection of game during the 
period of gestation or incubation and rearing of the young of such 
animals and birds as remain in or inhabit for purposes of breeding, 
the particular locality, and perhaps that is as far as it would be ex- 
pedient or wise to go; excei)t, as to such animals as are liable to bi- 
comc extinct unless the killing of them is ab8< lately prohibited. 
Bucks and snipe may breed in Michigan. Indeed, the “honking” 
of this Michi-gander persuades us that geese do, but they certainly 
do not in Nebrubka, except as before stated. We bad supposed 
“slaughter,” in the sense used by “Wolverine” applied to wanton 
destruction and waste. That it w'ould apply to the acis of one man 
as well as lo a dozen men. We have read in “The Sportsman” many 
pleasing accounts of large bags of game by Mr. A.orMr. B., of 
geese, Htiipc, ducks, grouse, quail, etc., and no doubt our friend 
“nV olvcrine,” with his Detroit or New York ftiend, has repeatedly 
m ade wonderful scores, far exceeding his personal need, but it was" 
not slaughter, because his friends or bis market-man would no 
doubt dispose of the balance in a useful manner: and I'll a-^sure 
him that Omaha sportsmen have friends equally accommodating. 
Has the keen-eyed gentleman of Hudson, Michigan, ever noticed 
and condemned the extensive practice iu his own State of shooting 
and netting wild pigeons during their passage to their breeding 
places? Is the beam in hjs eye so large th.it he calls upon bis 
brother to clear it away? Not only Is this so, but it is notorious 
that the practice of netting them even durini: incubation and rear- 
ing of their young is still going on, and at this very moment no 
doubt, his Michigan brother sportsmen are at Cleveland popping 
away at the innocent victiaas of this piracy, and yet this Wolverine 
does act howl. 
The moral suggested is, look in the glass before making up faces 
at your neighbor, • Omaha. 
Trees and Tree-IMaiitiiis. 
The Now York World lately had a powerful editorial on the pro- 
tection of trees. The followiDu from the same journal, goes to s'le- 
tain the protective argument, which the Kon am) CtUN has so con- 
stantly put forw ard. 
The wanton destruction of forests and the n.elcss killing of bnSalo 
and wild birds are alike painful, and each is productive of many 
evils. The loss of crops in the Wert last year by grasshoppers was, 
in a great measure due to the slaughter of birds in past years. 
Thousands and thousands of prairie hens, sage hens, snipe and 
many other kinds of birds are every season shot for no other pur- 
pose than the sport of killing them. So, too, of the bufifalo. Last 
fall, wheu the people living in the Hcpuhlican Valley had their 
crops dcstroj'cd, they found themselves iu that natural range of the 
buffalo without meat. A little care in saving them and they could 
have had buffalo iu plenty. Some of the very men who were hun- 
gry for meat had killed buffalo for their hides. A thousand pounds 
of good meat is often wasted to obtain a hide worth a dollar. It is 
a shame, a summary stop should Ite put to such destructiveness and 
waste of good things. 
The present and ever-increasing want of timber demands a gen- 
eral awakening on the subject of forest-saving. There is now left 
untouched in the whole United States but one really tine belt of 
timber, that growing on about oiie-half of Wasliingtou Territory 
and one-tliird-of Oregon. It is still a vast scope of land covered by 
magnificent yellow fir, many of the trees being 300 feet high. But 
when the Northern I’aciflc Kailroad is built it will open up this belt 
aud it will soon be destroyed. Then the last of the great American 
forests will have disappeared. Already exportations from it to- 
China. Janan, and Hawaii have begun, aud it cannot last over ten, 
twenty, or at most thirty years. It will be for the next half-decade 
our source of supply for ship-huilding timber, and then where shall 
we go for our ship timber? 
California has perhaps 500.000 acres of fine forest, one third of 
which was cut away in the last two years; but that State, aware of 
the future necessity, lias wisely commenced the culture of Austral- 
ian aud Eucalyptus trees, both which grow rapidly aud to immense 
size. 
The great Wisconsin forests are in process of rapid destruction. 
No less than l,C30,e.OO,OOU feet of lumber were cut iu a sitgle 3 ’ear. 
Tens of thousands of logs are annually rafted down the Mississippi 
to towns in Iowa, where they are cut into hoards. One firm (Young 
& Co.) have at Clinton, la., stUO saws running, and three-fonrths of 
the lumber they cut goes to Kansas and Nebraska. In a single year 
185.000. 000 feet of Wisconsin logs were cut in Iowa. At the present 
rate of felling, in ten or at most twenty years from now, not only 
the Wisconsin hut Michigan and Minnesota forests will be swept 
away. Fifty tiiousaud acres of Wi.'Consin timber are cut annually 
to supply the Kansas and Nebraska market alone. 
Netv York has lost her maple, walnut and hickory forests, and 
now has nothing left worthy of the name of big woods except lier 
Adironducks. In Pennsylvania the destruction has been still more 
wanton. The land speculators have bought up every bit of the Al- 
leghany fine forests and in their haste to make money have glulted 
the market with lumber of all kinds. What these vandals spared 
the fires arc now taking. 
A few people only are aware of the vast inroads made on our tree- 
growing regions. Take tlie matter of railroad ties alone, aud the 
tens of thousands of miles j'et to be built make the question of ties 
oue of vital importance. The Tl.iXX) miles of railroad in the United 
States has required in building the Use of 184,ti00,0(X) lies, and these 
have to he replaced by new lies every seven years. Ties, as every 
one knows, are made from young timber, and the cutting of them 
strikes at the very source of our timber supply. 
Incredible as it may seem, it is true that forest lands are still 
cleared for the purpose of being brought under cultivation. From 
ISGU to 1870 not less than twelve million acres of forest were cut, 
tire timber logged or burned on tlie ground and the laud farmed. 
The annual decrease of forest by logging aud hurniug is still over a 
million acres per year. 
The demand for lumber in the whole Un ted States increases at 
the rate of about 25 per cent, per annum, and the supply has in the 
last year incr-ased 30 per cent., showing that lumber producers, in 
their haste to destroy the forests, are overstocking the market. 
While the increase of forests from planting is less than one million 
acres, the decrease from all causes is over eight million acres an- 
nually. As an example, it is reported Chicago in 1871 received 
2. . 500.000 feet of lumber, and 10,000 acres were stripped of timber to 
uppiy tliat great city w ith fuel alone. 
Tlie fenecs ot the United States are really the great consumers of 
onr trees. This drain is almo.st beyond human computation or be- 
lief, and iu every Slate in the East onr farmers are becoming^ 
alamjed as to what they sliqll do for fence timber iu the next liftecu 
or twenty years. Each one is yearly economizing more and more 
his little store of timber, hut still he sees it melting away and no 
new forests at hand to replace it. It is an astonishing fact that the 
fences of the United States have cost more than the land, and they 
arc to-day the most valuable class of property iu the country except 
railroads and real estate in the cities. t)ur fenccs are now valued 
at tl,80u,lXlO.000, and to keep in repair costs ;t'.l8,0i)0,U(ie) annually. 
In Illinois it is estimated $2,000, (XXt is invested in fenccs, CO per cent, 
of which sre boards, post and rail, and W per cent, wire and hedges. 
These fences cost $175,000 aunnally for repairs, and yet Illinois is 
one of onr new States. 
The effect of trees upon the rainfall of a country is no longer a 
question. It ia said that ‘‘Jlcterologists and geologists do not agree 
as to the connection between the rain tall of a country taken in 
gross and the diminution or increase of its forest.” They are poor 
professors in either department who do not admit the general facts . 
A peach tree gives off eighteen pounds or about two gallons of 
moisture every twelve hours. TUe evaporation from the earth 
through trees is immense; the roots often draw from springs them- 
selves and throw off through their brmches great volumes ol humid 
air. Those who have watched the effect of forests on rainfall say 
that by commencing at the edge of any dry belt the forests and con- 
sequent rainfall may gradually he extended across the whole of the 
dry belt. Again, anybody who has ever taken shelter from the rain 
under a tree, knows bow little of it reaches the ground and what a 
great consumer of water trees are. Who iu a rain storm ever saw 
the water running through the woods as it runs in the open fields? 
I have no doubt if the b’.nks of the Mississippi and its tributaries 
were even partially planted with groves of trees no overflow would 
ever take place. We all know that the contrary Is quite true, and 
that the volume of water in a stream may be greatly diminished by 
cutting away the forests along its banks. In Germany, the Elbe 
lost 18 per cent, of its flow in consequence of cutting away the treea 
and exposing the water to the sun and consequent evaporation. 
The Island of Santa urnz, in the M’est Indies, which twenty years 
ago was a garden of fertility, is now a desert— the result of felliag 
its forests. There are good shipping streams in Europe that have 
been rendered nnnavigable by cutting down the trees along their 
banks and about their head-waters. Naiioleon, as early as 1808, for 
this reason forbid the cutting of timber on thi Rhine. 
That we have wantonly aud shamefully deatroyed onr forests, I 
think, must now be evident to every thinking man. Wc cannot 
undo the past, but we may still provide for the future if we set 
about it in earnest and with aense. What, then, should he done? 
Let every man remember when he fells a tree thicker than his body, 
that he does an act which he can never undo and destroys that which 
in his short life he can never replace. Farmers should plant more 
hedges, and avoid as far as possible the cutting of young limber for 
rails. Division fences between farms onght always to be made of 
hedges. Strong herd laws should be passed in the States, and 
stock not allowed to run at large, thus doing away with the neces- 
sity for so many fences. 
A million of dead capital in many of the States might thus be 
utilized and brought into use for other purposes. States shonld 
make appropriations and foster the replanting of forests. Congress 
should enact strong laws for the protection of timber on the public 
domain, and we shonld have a commissioner of forestry. Ove 
seers of roads should he made to plant trees along the highway ‘at 
the public expense. Railways shonld be compelled by law to plant 
trees along the whole of their lines on cither side of the track. We 
cannot in one or even two generations undo all the damage that has 
been done, but by beginning at once we may still be able to avert a 
timber famine in the United States. Let Congress, at its next ses- 
sion, take up the question of forest-saving, appoint an intelligent 
committee, and let them send for James T Allen of Nebraska, Mr. 
Uugbitt of Iowa, Sterling Morton of Illinois, and some other prac- 
tical tree-growers who, if the committee don't know, will be able to 
tell them not only how to save such of our forests as remain, bnt 
how to replace those destroyed. 
Salmon Fishinff in Labrador. 
BY ISAAC McLELLAN. 
By the wild Canadian shore, 
By the sandy Labrador, 
By the rocky Mingan Isles 
Aud Where Anticosti smiles, 
Numberless the salmon shoals 
Gather where the salt tide rolls. 
Rivers, streams of crysta' clearness, 
Ponr o'er that extended strand. 
From thy river-mouth, St. Lawrence, 
To the coast of Newfoundland; 
Far as where the Belle Isle strait 
Opens to the eeae its gate. 
Cold those rivers as the fountain 
From the Andes-tops that flows; 
Coid as waters of the monntain 
M'ith its melting ice and snows, 
There amid the salt abysses 
Or the river’s brimming tide. 
Gleaming, flashing, plunging, leaping, 
Shoals of royal salmon glide. 
Where the noble Saint John river 
Mingles with the ocean surf, 
Brown with weedy rock and sand bar. 
Green with bordering velvet turf, 
Comes the angler with his tackle 
Whea midsummer suns ride high. 
Casting far into the ripples 
Silken line aud colored fly. 
Near thy aldcr-skirtod border, 
Wtiere the KattlinglRun doth slnne, 
He erects ins hut of branches, 
Roof of hemlock, wall of pine; 
Floors it with the cedar-saplings. 
Fragrant, soil as couch of kings. 
Rioting in forest pleasures 
And the sleep tliat labor brings. 
Morning with its dewey freshness. 
Wit'., its rosy, dappled skies. 
Calls nnu where tlie rusliiiig river 
Intranspar. nt beauty lies; 
There, in ripple and in eddy 
Or deep pool, to cast the flics. 
