Aug.4,1906.] FOREST AND STREAM. 171 
ETCHING ON FUNGUS, BY ROWLAND E. ROBINSON. 
dry sand beach is now under ten feet of water). 
Last summer with two companions, I spent a 
good part of a half day looking for a dry place 
large enough to temporarily pitch a small tent. 
But there was not a spot left. All is a black 
stained water-soaked swamp, covered with a 
tangle of decaying skeletons of the forest. Big 
white pines, red pines, spruces and other trees 
are all dead. An expanse of mosquito breeding 
swamp is what we now have where was the old 
forest with its front of white sand. If it con¬ 
tained a camping ground, one would avoid it. 
To many this may seem of small consequence 
in view of the greater damage constantly done 
by lumbering, but it is a sample of what can be 
done with impunity. We are told that in some 
places prompt punishment follows small damage. 
It is probable, of course, that extreme applica¬ 
tions of the letter, rather than the spirit, in 
trivial cases are matters of local spite. But we 
do not learn that anyone has been called to ac¬ 
count for this flooding. Perhaps it was classed as 
destruction by the “elements” and came outside 
the law, as possibly did the fires of 1903. 
Although over 100,000 acres of State forest were 
then burned out of a total of over 630,000 acres, 
with direct damage to the extent of $3,500,000, 
and indirect damage incalculable; although more 
than one-half of these fires were known to have 
been caused by sparks from locomotives upon 
not one of which had anyone bothered to put a 
spark arrester as provided by law, we do not 
hear of the railroad directors having trouble to 
get out of jail. 
It may be extremely important that trivial 
offenses should not go unpunished (and it may be 
safest for deputies to have their attention 
occupied by them), but can we get the most per¬ 
manent respect for the law if we soak the poor 
man who steals a dead tree and forget the man 
who killed it, and a million others? 
Published interviews are to the effect that 
State officials favor the project of building dams 
to secure power and to “alleviate the flood con¬ 
ditions.” Probably there are many places where 
reservoirs of reasonable size could be built with¬ 
out serious damage to the forest, but they will 
not be built, in such places nor of small size, if 
engineers interested only in obtaining abundant 
and accessible power are to choose the sites. If 
it were not for that poor old constitution which 
representatives (?) of the people are always so 
willing to change to a more businesslike arrange¬ 
ment, how many sites for power dams or sites 
desirable for anything else would the people now 
possess? Until we can be sure that only men 
whose fixed and first purpose is forest preserva¬ 
tion are to select what must be sacrificed, there 
can be no safety except in forbidding destruction. 
This alone has been often insufficient. 
So far as floods are concerned, what has else¬ 
where been found the better economy, to build 
dams about denuded mountains or to grow 
forests? Which is cheaper, to reforest moun¬ 
tain slopes or to perpetuate what has been for 
thousands of years getting a foothold? The 
prompt purchase of the land about the headwaters 
of the streams, before the rapid and destructive 
modes of cutting now being rushed, and the 
always subsequent fires, have left only bare rock, 
would save more from future floods than would 
many times the cost spent in dams. Get the 
forest first; then in later years when reservoirs 
are needed, we can get spring water to fill them. 
Otherwise they will collect only muddy torrents 
even if strong enough and big enough to hold 
them back. 
That speech of the forest commissioner, re¬ 
ported in a recent number of Forest and 
Stream, is more encouraging. It sounds as if 
there may be one man in authority whose vision 
does not stop at the log pile, who can understand 
that it is saving money to keep for the tired 
man “A beautiful resting place,” as the Indians 
called some of that country, that there is material 
value in the existence of a fresh air playground 
for the worker, that the thousands who on weary 
days look ahead to the annual two weeks in the 
woods, bring back productive energy of more value 
than that developed by a hundred dams, that we 
must save the forest on the mountain tops now, 
if we will later fill the reservoirs below. Perhaps 
an official of this sort might be trusted to locate 
a dam, but after we have voted to permit the 
sacrifice, there will be another commissioner, one 
not selected by the common people. 
We have had reports of Forest Superintendents 
which carried the same argument that would lie 
in a report of Park Commissioners, recommend¬ 
ing the substitution of apple trees for all others 
in city parks, because they would give shade and 
beauty enough and more revenue than could be 
derived from useless diversity; the turning of 
lawns into fields of buckwheat, equally pretty, if 
you think so, and more remunerative; and by all 
means the leasing of the best sites to amusement 
concerns for the big revenue in sight, a very 
satisfactory and business-like showing of in¬ 
creased income with no loss worth mentioning. 
The chief concern of these superintendents seemed 
to be that the people might wait too long before 
converting their property into cash. 
Every week, for years, within the marked out 
“Adirondack Park,” four thousand acres of its 
trees have disappeared. Get a map and pencil; it 
doesn’t take a prophet to figure out the end. 
Every year legislative committees wend their way 
through that region, and every day sees seven 
hundred acres less of forest. Recommndations 
by these committees for completing possession of 
the “Park” do not seem to be considerd seriously. 
There are even suspicions that visiting com¬ 
mittees are only “law’s delays,” that the land will 
be purchased only after the trees are gone. We 
know what the common people think and what 
they will do if they get a chance to vote squarely 
on the question. They, however, have only few 
and slow means of getting direct consideration. 
But how long will the people wait? Will they 
stand by until this heritage disappears, as they 
have watched the destruction of others? 
David Carl. 
A Lost Dog. 
Perth Amboy, N. J .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: A friend sends me a copy of a Quebec 
newspaper wherein appears the following adver¬ 
tisement : “Lost.—At No. 19, South Famille 
Street, black cocker pup. If found after this 
notice in anyone’s possession, will be prosecuted. 
Return to J. B. Renaud & Co., Paul Street.” 
Friend asks, marginally, “Can you beat that?” 
Well, no. But I have heard of a village ordi¬ 
nance running thus: “All owners of hogs found 
running at large, shall be fined five dollars and 
put in the pound.” 
I am inclined to regard this as genuine for 
the reason that one of the ordinances of my own 
beloved city sternly. provides that “no horse or 
vehicle shall be permitted to stop on any street 
crossing, nor tie any animal to a tree, under 
penalty of ten dollars for each offense.” J. L. K. 
