16 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January 3, 1914. 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company 
Chas. A. Hazen, President 
W. G. Beeckoft, Secretary. Charles L. Wise, Treasurer. 
22 Thames Street, New York. 
CORRESPONDENCE:- Forest and Stream is the 
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tion between American sportsmen. The editors invite com¬ 
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of course, are not responsible for the views of correspondents. 
Anonymous communications cannot be regarded. 
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THE El ETCH HETCHY BILL. 
President Wilson has measured up to ex¬ 
pectations for the most part, but he has done one 
thing which passeth all understanding. His sign¬ 
ing of the Hetch-Hetchy bill, which practically 
gave to San Francisco a valuable part of 
Yosemite National Park, and seriously menaces 
the irrigated and irrigable lands of the San 
Joaquin Valley, is the act to which we refer. 
It will become increasingly difficult—in the face 
of the prevalent sentiment for conservation of 
natural and National resources—for him to jus¬ 
tify this grant. Congress represents districts and 
states, and legislation consists too much in log¬ 
rolling and swapping support for bills. It might 
easily pass Congress. 
But the President represents the Nation and 
ought not to allow so valuable a part of the pub¬ 
lic domain to be diverted' from National uses. 
And it was not necessary; other water supply 
was available—but would need to be paid for. 
And why should not San Francisco pay for 
its water? 
With the fine things done by this Adminis¬ 
tration and the President’s unquestionable cour¬ 
age in maintaining the things he elects to sup¬ 
port, he ought not to have joined in this wretched 
piece of work. 
MAINE DEER LEGISLATION. 
Walter I. Neal, Game Commissioner of the 
State of Maine, is in favor of a bill prohibiting 
the shooting of all deer, save the buck. Mr. 
Neal thinks that the passage of such a bill would 
greatly decrease the rate of fatalities, by compell¬ 
ing huntsmen to exercise more discretion than 
formerly. He had the following to say on the 
matter: 
“I deeply regret the hunting accidents that 
have taken place in the woods this Fall, and it 
is hard to say just what ought to be done to 
prevent them, but I believe that the state should 
adopt a law allowing only buck deer to be shot. 
It will be necessary for the hunters to look and 
see if the animal has horns, which will necessitate 
more care. 
“The State Fish and Game Commission will 
make an endeavor at the 1915 Legislature to have 
a close time on moose for five years, just as we 
did at the last session. It is necessary to con¬ 
serve the moose of Maine, and nothing short of 
a five-year close time on them will satisfy the 
commission. 
“The decrease of 700 deer in Bangor in re¬ 
ceipts compared with last year I attribute to the 
hard hunting conditions, much wet weather in 
October, and lack of snow. In past years there 
has often been as much as 16 inches of snow in 
the woods at this season of the year, but now it 
is reported that there are only five inches in the 
woods, and crusty at that. 
“On Jan. 1 the warden service all over the 
forest district shall be started under a new plan, 
which has been partially in force during the past 4 
few months. It will give almost entire power 
to the ten chief wardens in their respective dis¬ 
tricts and the administration of the game laws 
in those sections will practically be left to them. 
They will not have to refer as many matters to 
the commission as formerly.” 
FORESTRY IN NEIL' YORK STATE. 
The report of the wood-using industries of 
New York which will be issued by the New York 
State College of Forestry at Syracuse will show 
that New York is truly the Empire State in the 
consumption of forest products, using, as it does, 
over 1,750,000,000 board feet per year. This is 
considerably in excess of the amount used by any 
other state in the Lhiion. During the past year 
foresters from the State College of Forestry at 
Syracuse working in co-operation with experts 
from the United States Forest Service, visited 
many wood-using plants in New York, and the 
exhaustive report prepared as the result of field 
studies shows many new facts as to where our 
wood supplies come from and how they are being 
used. 
The report shows that in 1850 New York led 
all the other states in the production of lumber. 
Rapidly increasing population and tremendous ad¬ 
vancement in the development of the industries 
using wood have caused a very material increase 
in the consumption of all kinds of forest products 
so that today New York has fallen from her posi¬ 
tion as leader in the production of lumber until 
she is now twenty-third in the list of timber 
producing states. The field work in preparation 
for the report showed that immense amounts of 
Douglas fir, western cedar and even California 
redwood are being sent across the country for 
use in our various wood-using industries. Enor¬ 
mous quantities of yellow pine and southern 
cypress are used' also in the state in building 
operations and other industries. So rapidly have 
the splendid virgin white pine forests disappeared 
from New York that today we send to Michigan, 
Minnesota and Canada for our finer grades of 
white pine and other woods. Such substitutes as 
southern hard pine, cypress and western pine are 
rapidly taking the place in our markets of high- 
class lumber produced earlier in this state. 
New York spends about $55,000,000 for wood 
every year, and only 31 per cent, of this amount 
is paid for wood produced within the borders of 
the state. With a vast area of from 12,000,000 
to 14,000,000 acres out of a total of 33,000,000 
acres, better suited to forest crops than to any¬ 
thing else, the state will produce practically all 
of the lumber and other forest products when it 
practices forestry on these forest lands. 
The new report on the wood-using industries 
of New York will show that its wood-working 
establishments turn out everything from big 
structural timbers down to the finest dowels, 
tooth-picks and pegs. Surprising quantities of 
wood are being used in such unusual articles as 
wooden shoes, wood fibre plaster, toys, novelties, 
spools, all sorts of handles, etc. One of the 
attractive things brought out by the report is that 
slabs and waste material formerly burned up or 
left to rot in the woods are being used in many 
effective ways, such as making of toys and other 
srnall articles and acid and other chemical prod¬ 
ucts. 
The State College of Forestry believes that 
New York will return to her original important 
position as a great producer of forest products. 
It can see no reason for sending out to the 
Pacific Coast or down to the Gulf States for 
lumber and other forest products when forests 
can be grown as well, if not better, than in the 
West, right within the borders of the Empire 
State. Producing our own wood will keep more 
than $20,000,000 a year within the state, making 
our own people that much the richer. Covering 
our millions of acres of idle land with producing 
forest will not only make these idle lands, now 
unproductive, bear their share of the support of 
the state, but extensive forests mean more and 
better water in springs and rivers, more game 
and healthier people because every bit of forest 
should and will become recreation places for city 
people. 
ON HUNTING THE HUNTSMAN. 
A Philadelphia correspondent protests 
against the restriction of fox hunting. His con¬ 
tentions are based on the fact that the fox is a 
pretty good huntsman himself, and that in the 
vicinity of the State Game Park at Forked River, 
N. J., the scarcity of rabbits tells all too plainly 
of the skill with which he operates when given 
free reign in his favorite occupation. The cor¬ 
respondent concludes that one way to limit the 
number of rabbits that annually become a portion 
of Reynard’s nutrition, is to give the fox hunters 
an opportunity to earn the three-dollar bounty 
offered for every fox skin. Following is the 
letter: 
Philadelphia, Dec. 13. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I enclose a couple of clippings from an Ocean 
Co., N. J., paper that possibly may be of interest 
to you. As the territory mentioned by the fox 
hunter is quite near the finely appointed State 
game farm at Forked River, where much game 
is supposed to be reared and distributed, it seems 
to me the State Game Commission is, to say the 
least, inconsistent in having fox hunting gov¬ 
erned by so many restrictions. I know from 
personal experience that vast sections of that 
part of the state are almost devoid of rabbits, 
while foxes are plentiful. An orthodox fox 
hunter has no time to trifle with rabbits, and in 
former years it was the custom to hunt foxes 
and train young dogs while snow was on the 
ground, so no mistake could be made in the trail. 
As the fox hunts the entire year, it would seem 
that it would be a good economic policy to en¬ 
courage his pursuit and capture, even if an occa¬ 
sional rabbit were sacrificed—which the fox gets 
anyway, as matters now stand. This argument 
takes no account of quail, introduced pheasants, 
etc., although we all know the fox gets his share, 
and more, where he has little or no opposition. 
Until the theoretical gives way to practical com¬ 
mon sense, it is for Reynard to laugh—and yet 
there is a bounty of $3 paid on each fox killed. 
W. H. Eddy. 
HIGH POWER RIFLES. 
Winsted, Conn., Dec. 23. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Mr. Peter Flint is right. The high-power 
rifles should be kept out of the Adirondacks. 
There is no call for them. Game is not being 
shot at a distance that requires their use. I 
speak from experience, for I came near being 
shot twice myself. I know of a gentleman carry¬ 
ing a gun having two fingers shot off, but heard 
no report of the shot or knew where it came 
from. It is bad enough to be shot at by green¬ 
horns, who shoot at everything they see move 
without being shot by high-power rifles. It is 
not safe to go into the woods during the hunt¬ 
ing season. 
C. S. Foster. 
