758 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 13, 1913. 
an exclusive right to shoot, hunt or fish on lands 
and water and who desires to propagate or pro¬ 
tect fish birds and game thereon, may, by doing 
certain things, have the right to hunt and fish 
therein to the exclusion of everyone else. This 
is, certainly, a tremendously liberal gift of the 
people’s property and, following the regular law 
of proper and evenly balanced consideration in 
all contracts, should put upon the recipient of 
the favor a corresponding responsibility commen¬ 
surate with the importance and value of the grant. 
Does the statute mean that a person must 
own the land from which he seeks to exclude a 
brother sportsman, or that he must own or have 
the exclusive right to shoot or hunt thereon 
before he can do so? There is a clear difference 
in the meaning of the two propositions which 
should be clearly brought out. There is no ques¬ 
tion about the right of a citizen to own land, 
but how can he be said to own or have the 
exclusive right to shoot, hunt or fish on lands 
and water which are today and have always been 
open to any citizen of this state for hunting and 
fishing in lawful season? If the game belongs 
to the people in their sovereign capacity, and can 
be taken by any one, how can a single man have 
any exclusive right to hunt or fish even on his 
own lands to the exclusion of his neighbor? 
As a matter of fact, no such special right 
exists or ever has existed in this state. This 
point is clearly shown by the fact that such re¬ 
striction is not even claimed as a present right 
by the persons now trying to establish a private 
park out of his lands. He is seeking to exclude 
the public not by virtue of any actual pre-exist¬ 
ing right, but only hopes so to do after comply¬ 
ing strictly with the terms of the statute already 
referred to. He comes before his fellow citizens 
with a request to be permitted to propagate or 
protect fish and game on premises already owned 
by him and asks in return for such service to this 
state that he may hereafter have the sole right to 
hunt and fish there—in short, to own all the 
game to the exclusion of everyone else. 
It is only after complying strictly with this 
singularly worded statute that he can even claim 
a right to take all the game found on his prem¬ 
ises and keep all hunters away. 
Further than this, as a condition for receiv¬ 
ing this special privilege over his neighboring 
property owners and citizens generally, and with 
a view of restricting the number of those whose 
lands can be converted into private parks or pre¬ 
serves, the Legislature enacted a clause in said 
law to the general effect that all waters stocked 
by the state prior to the passage of said Act 
could not be turned into such a preserve. 
The Legislature clearly saw that the people 
would not stand quietly by and allow these self- 
styled protectors to exploit for their own per¬ 
sonal profit and advantage the trout and other 
game fish that had been hatched and reared by 
the then Forest, Fish and Game Commission and 
planted by it in those waters by this state at 
the expense of taxpayers. The lawmaking body, 
therefore, most properly refused to grant requests 
for private parks where the lands had been 
stocked with fish from the state’s hatcheries prior 
to the application of the owners for such exclu¬ 
sive right to take fish and game. 
A careful perusal of the statute will lead to 
the conclusion that under its provisions few, if 
any, lands in the Adirondacks can be lawfully 
placed in the private park class, for it distinctly 
states that waters which have been previously 
stocked by the state cannot be so set apart from 
hunting and fishing by all citizens. Trout, for 
example, abound in all mountain brooks there 
fed by cold springs, and have been in those 
waters from the earliest days. These game fish 
are by law the property of the State of New 
York just as much as the deer, grouse and hares 
are which have always abounded in such locali¬ 
ties. The writer can see no difference between 
native trout swimming in a brook or lake and 
those brought in a can from the state hatchery 
and planted there among the natives. They are 
both equally state fish and lands are in fact 
stocked with state fish in one way as much as the 
other. One must admit, therefore, that where 
waters now abound or formerly abounded with 
native brook trout, any application of a corpora¬ 
tion to acquire a right to acquire same to the 
exclusion of anyone else was and is improper 
and should be refused, just the same as a request 
to make a private preserve out of waters which 
were stocked years ago by this state from its 
trout hatcheries. 
Let us see whether the applicants under the 
private preserve law have fully and honorably 
kept their covenants with the people of this state 
promised by the former for the grant of the 
exclusive privileges asked for. I mean their 
agreement that these lands and waters should 
hereafter be used by them as a private park for 
propagating and protecting fish and game. Have 
these privileged persons kept faith with the peo¬ 
ple in this respect? They certainly have not. In 
a few cases they may have introduced some trout 
purchased at their own expense, or have put out 
a few pheasants or other game birds, but in near¬ 
ly all cases, having thus acquired the sole rights 
to hunt and fish on their lands, these owners 
have simply stopped right there and now rest, 
exploiting the state’s game, deer, grouse and trout 
for their own personal good or that of club mem¬ 
bers, without taking any active steps to redeem 
their promise made to the people of this state 
that they would hereafter carefully propagate and 
protect the fish and game found therein. 
Outside of some occasional feeble efforts to 
stock streams and put out pheasants, nothing has 
been done toward scientific propagation of the 
game and fish on these preserves. All the “pro¬ 
tection” thus far noticed has been in the direc¬ 
tion of keeping adjoining landowners and duly 
licensed sportsmen from taking any game or fish 
on their so-called preserves or arresting, fining 
or imprisoning such persons as dared to shoot 
thereon. 
What have these gentlemen done, for in¬ 
stance, in the matter of propagating and increas¬ 
ing the supply of native deer on their premises? 
How many employ men to prevent injury to the 
does and fawns during breeding time and to keep 
down the number of their natural enemies on 
their lands? How many buy hay or stack marsh 
grass for the deer’s consumption during severe 
winters and save the hundreds that die of starva¬ 
tion. The only instances to the writer’s knowl¬ 
edge of such feeding has been done by the Con¬ 
servation Commission, and the present increase 
of deer is largely due to such care and other 
similar work of said body, and not to any exer¬ 
cised by the owners of these private parks. 
Do we ever hear of any attempts to stock 
these preserves with quail or grouse? And yet, 
it is perfectly easy by the expenditure of a little 
money to obtain almost any quantity of quail for 
this purpose, and even grouse, as Prof. Hodge, 
of Worcester, Mass., and others have shown, can 
be domesticated and propagated about as easily 
as chickens. 
If the owners of such lands wish to continue 
in their present hostile policy of excluding duly 
licensed sportsmen from taking game and fish 
from their preserves ’ under penalty of fine and 
imprisonment, they must in all fairness substan¬ 
tially and at once comply with the requirements 
of the statute under which their present protec¬ 
tion exists, in the matter of actual propagation 
of game and fish upon their lands and in their 
several waters. 
That this proposition is entirely just and fair, 
is shown by the present attitude of many Ad¬ 
irondack landowners and hunting clubs, which 
although originally organized under the foregoing 
law, have recently adopted a liberal policy in re¬ 
lation to visiting sportsmen desiring to fish or 
hunt on their lands, even the most exclusive 
clubs being now frequently willing to allow any 
responsible person permission to enjoy their pre¬ 
serve, subject only to the general forestry laws 
and the bag limit imposed upon their members. 
The writer has in mind a 2,000-acre club preserve 
in Essex County, New Jersey, upon which deer 
are found in large numbers, and where, owing 
to its proximity to railway and steamboats and 
several large villages, much shooting is done and 
even considerable poaching by certain reckless 
characters, and yet this organization has uniform¬ 
ly adopted the broad principle of co-operation 
with all neighboring sportsmen, rich and poor, 
insisting only upon their compliance with exist¬ 
ing laws when shooting on its grounds, where 
beside deer, grouse are particularly abundant and 
furnish grand sport to all each season. 
It is a significant fact that the membership 
of this body is composed chiefly of New York 
lawyers, who would certainly be as active as any 
class of men in insisting upon exclusive rights 
to hunt and fish on their extensive lands. 
It is well known that that genial sportsman 
the late Timothy L. Woodruff invariably ex¬ 
tended an open invitation to all hunters to visit 
his Adirondack preserves at Lake Cora, near his 
famous camp “Killkare.” 
There is a practical side to this openhanded 
policy which must not be lost sight of. It is the 
fact that such visiting sportsmen will rarely wear 
out their welcome or take away an undue amount 
of game. Their good feeling is shown also by an 
almost punctilious observance of the safeguards 
against forest fires and the extinguishment of the 
same when once started. It is well known that 
many forest fires have been fought and put out 
by hunters visiting game preserves for the pur¬ 
pose of fishing and hunting and whose holidays 
have thus been devoted to the nobler work of 
saving the forests from destruction. 
City owners of game preserves and hunting 
club members are beginning to appreciate fully 
the great advantages that result from an intelli¬ 
gent common interest and sympathy between 
them and hunters whose keen, protective eyes are 
constantly directed over the woods and waters 
in those remote regions in the North Woods 
where the game birds and animals bravely carry 
on their struggle for existence and subsistence 
during the long and tedious winter season. 
Peter Flint. 
New York, N. Y., Dec. 1, 1913. 
CANOEING. 
A. C. A. Membership. 
New Members Proposed. 
Atlantic Division—James S. Cawley, 132 Cliff 
St., Somerville, N. J., by Perry Vosseller. 
Eastern Division—Ralph Abercrombie, 81 
Providence St., Worcester, Mass., by Robert F. 
Abercrombie. 
Western Division—Lucien Wulsin, Baldwin 
Piano Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, by F. B. Huntington. 
New Members Elected. 
Atlantic Division—6,795, James B. McMahon, 
Jr., 510 West 148th St., New York, N. Y. 
Northern Division—6,797, W. Philip, Galt, 
Ont., Canada. 
Western Division—6,796, F. G. Winter, 1604 
Railway Ex., Chicago, Ill.; 6,798, George A. H. 
Scott, 1145 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 
