Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1906, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST n, 1906. 
( VOL. LXVII— No. 6. 
I No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre¬ 
ation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
Objects. Announcement in first number of 
Forest and Stream, Aug. 14,1873. 
TO WEEKLY PURCHASERS. 
Owing to a change in the method of distribut¬ 
ing the Forest and Stream, readers who are ac¬ 
customed to purchase the paper of newsdealers, 
at news stands, in book shops, and elsewhere, 
are advised to leave with the dealer from whom 
they buy a standing advance order to supply them 
regularly. If any reader has difficulty in pro¬ 
curing the paper, he is requested to communicate 
with the publishers. 
BRING BACK THE ELK TO NEBRASKA. 
Among the excellent work being done by the 
Forest Service, is the reforesting of certain por¬ 
tions of the great plains, included in what was 
called in the geography books of fifty years ago 
the Great American Desert. 
According to the average man’s understanding 
of the term desert, the word suited the country 
well enough. It was and is a waste of shifting 
sand, where a little grass grows and not much 
else; yet in old times, and even recently it has 
been a cattle country and has supported great 
herds. Nevertheless the wind used to pick up 
the sand from one place and carry it to another, 
piling it up in great dunes which remind one of 
the sand dunes of certain seashores. Twenty- 
five years ago, when the first ranchers went into 
the country and plowed and planted, the cow 
men used to tell with glee that after a wind 
storm the ranchers would find all the potatoes 
that they had put into the ground piled up in a 
thick row against the fence to leeward. 
The territory under consideration includes the 
Niobrara, the Dismal River and the North Platte 
Reserves in Nebraska, and the Garden City Re¬ 
serve in Kansas. Here have been planted, and 
are still being planted, forests of honey locust, 
osage orange, Russian mulberry, red cedar and 
western yellow pine; and besides this millions 
of seedlings are being raised in nurseries for use 
in other reserves. By this tree planting, the 
shifting soil is being bound together and held in 
place, and a forest crop is being grown which will 
in time be merchantable. 
The territory included in these reserves was 
formerly in the buffalo range, and abounded in 
deer, elk and antelope. The Niobrara, Loup, 
Dismal and North Platte Rivers were great elk 
countries. It is greatly to be desired that after 
the planting and growth of these reserves has 
progressed far enough, so that the trees will not 
be endangered thereby, these reserves should be 
set aside as game refuges and should be stocked 
with the animals that formerly inhabited them 
in such numbers. At the present day, we are 
accustomed to think of the elk and deer as in¬ 
habitants only of the timbered and mountain 
country, but men whose memory goes back 
further know that in old times the elk was a 
prairie animal, and that until exterminated there, 
was extremely abundant all through Nebraska. 
Why not bring back this splendid animal to 
its old feeding ground? 
A CLOSE SEASON FOR COD. 
There is nothing new under the sun, and even 
game and forest protection were talked of thou¬ 
sands of years ago. Good game law doctrine is 
found in the Pentateuch, and the Garden of Eden 
was the first game refuge. Before and after the 
big freshet, Noah and his family looked after 
the artificial propagation of big game and small. 
At the present day a favorite remedy suggested 
for the re-establishment of certain species of our 
native fish, and game, is the making a close 
time to extend over a term of years. No doubt 
the man who first proposed the plan, believed 
that he had made a great discovery, but as a 
matter of fact, such a suggestion was made as to 
fish almost two hundred years ago. 
In the year 1744, there was published in French 
the Journal of the Voyage to North America 
of Father de Charlevoix, undertaken in 1720 by 
order of the French king. A few years later 
the work was translated into English, and bears 
the London imprint of 1761. 
Father Charlevoix was a Jesuit. priest, a very 
learned man and good observer, and his book is 
regarded as the most truthful and valuable trea¬ 
tise on New France which had been written up 
to that time. His account of the natural history 
of the country and of the customs, character, 
religion and traditions of the natives is very 
curious and very interesting. It is given in the 
form of a series of letters to the Duchess of 
Lesdiguieres. 
In one of the early letters, in which he is des¬ 
cribing his voyage across the ocean, he speaks 
of the great banks of Newfoundland, then, *as 
now, the cod'fishing ground of the world. These 
banks, over which the water is so much shoaler 
than in many adjacent parts of the ocean, 
Charlevoix conceives to exist because there is 
here on the floor of the ocean a great mountain, 
which reaches nearly to the surface of the water. 
Then going on to speak of the cod fishery he 
says: 
“However, let the size and shape of this moun¬ 
tain be as they will, since it is impossible to as¬ 
certain them with any degree of exactness; you 
find on it a prodigious quantity of shellfish, with 
several sorts of other fishes of all sizes, most part 
of which serve for the common nourishment of 
the cod, the number of which seems to equal 
that of the grains of sand which cover the bank. 
For more than two centuries since, there have 
been loaded with them from two to three hun¬ 
dred ships annually, notwithstanding the dimi¬ 
nution is not perceivable. It might not, how¬ 
ever, be amiss to discontinue this fishing from 
time to time, and the more so, as the gulph of 
St. Lawrence, and even the river, for more than 
sixty leagues, the coasts of Acadia, those of 
the Isle Royale, or Cape Breton, and of New¬ 
foundland, are no less replenished with this fish, 
than the great banks. These, madame, are true 
mines, which are more valuable, and require less 
expence than those of Peru and Mexico.” 
A SEAL EXPEDIENT. 
The seal is again brought to public notice by 
negotiations between the United States and 
Great Britain to combine in the purchase of an 
immunity they are otherwise powerless to effect. 
The curious situation is this: In the Pribi- 
loff Islands, tbe United States possesses a rook¬ 
ery to which fur seals resort for breeding, and 
then go thence to the high seas where they fall 
a prey to the pelagic sealers. In other words 
this country is in the business of breeding a seal 
supply for tbe benefit and profit of fishermen 
of other countries. Under these circumstances 
Congress some time ago authorized the exter¬ 
mination of the seals unless some remedy could 
be found by which the United States might 
realize for itself the profits of its Pribiloff Island 
seal breeding grounds. Such an obliteration of 
a species, in particular of an animal contributing 
so much to the comfort and the wealth of man¬ 
kind, is an extremely harsh measure, and not to 
to be squared with political economy, except in 
very exceptional and most desperate circum¬ 
stance like those here prevailing. Much satisfaction 
then is afforded by the announcement that 
America and England have come to an agreement 
on an expedient to save the seals. 1 he basis of 
the agreement is the entire abolition of sealing 
for a term of years; and the payment of an 
indemnity to the pelagic fishermen for the confis¬ 
cation of their industry. In other words, the 
Bering Sea sealers are to be bought off. 
This recalls an expedient adopted by a district 
protector in the early days of the New \ork 
game and fish protection service. The protec¬ 
tor, a New York city man, and as a fish protector 
very much of an amateur, was directed to go to 
a certain stream and seize an illicit eel basket. 
He found the tabooed contrivance and the man 
who owned it. The basket was out in the 
stream, and it was “up to” the protector to de¬ 
molish it. That meant getting wet and dirty. 
The New Yorker was not dressed for the part; 
but he was equal to the occasion. Appealing to 
the owner of the contraband trap he said, “My 
good man, here are five dollars; please go out 
and bring in that basket.” That is practically 
the position of America and England to-day with 
the Bering Sea sealers. 
