Jan. 17, 1914. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
67 
An Ideal Game Preserve for Sale 
St. Vincent's Island, Floiida. The only 
perfect and complete hunting and fish¬ 
ing preserve left in this country. Situated in 
the Gulf of Mexico, eight miles from Apalachi¬ 
cola, Fla. Containing 11,290 acres. It is nine 
miles long, and four miles wide, about one- 
li'alf covered with original forest, grand pines 
and palmetto. There are open grassy Savannah’s, 
five large fresh water lakes, connected by large 
cieek, flow by manor house to sea. A dozen 
other ponds afford fresh water for a large num¬ 
ber of deer, wild boar, wild cattle, turkey and 
some alligators, as well as great quantity of 
large and small fish. Numerous large oyster 
beds in coves. Nine miles of wide hard sand 
beach furnishes a fast drive for autos or horses, 
beside beautiful-drives thru the woods. 
The Island has been owned since the war 
by only three proprietors, all of whom pro¬ 
tected the game. The last proprietor has lived 
on the Island for many winters; he has sown 
many hundreds of acres of wild rice, potamo- 
geton and other duck food, so that great quan¬ 
tities of duck and geese visit and live on the 
Island. The owner has imported and success- 
full bred the Sambur, or India Deer, also 
Japanese Deer which are increasing fast, as 
well as wild turkey and quail. The Island is 
easily protected, contains at a low estimate 
1,500 native deer, 300 or 400 head of wild cattle, 
and several thousand wild pigs. 
Numerous oyster beds in coves and bayous 
furnish the finest oysters of the coast, besides 
shrimp, crabs and turtles. All varieties of fish¬ 
ing found in the Gulf of Mexico abound in the 
channels adjacent, as well as being impounded 
in the inland lakes of St. Vincent. 
There are a half dozen bungalows and sev¬ 
eral hunting lodges in woods—built for the con¬ 
venience of a large family, or visitors, which 
would serve well for club purposes. They are 
modern and up-to-date. A yacht and launch, 
duck boats, vehicles and mules, milch cows and 
chickens, go with the place. For information 
address 
Dr. V. M. Pierce, Invalids’- Hotel. Buffalo, N. Y. 
Archery Notes 
By Z. E. JACKSON 
After the clamps are removed from the 
footing the wings of the footing will extend be¬ 
yond the sides of the shaft 3-16 of an inch. 
These extensions should be planed off until the 
shaft again assumes its dimension of a straight 
stave % of an inch square. 
A grooved board, such as a piece of floor¬ 
ing, 36 inches long is held in the vise with the 
groove uppermost, in which a wooden stop near 
one end has been provided. The stave is laid 
in the groove and the four corners planed until 
the stave is reduced to a true octagon. The corners 
of the octagon are then removed in the same 
way and so on until the stave has been reduced 
to a true round. It is then further reduced 
with varying grades of sand-paper, in doing 
which the arrow is given a decided spiral or 
rotary motion. A power driven tool on the 
order of a dowel cutter is best for turning the 
shaft. 
It is best to make 18 or 24 arrows at a 
time. Some will turn out bad, some be ruined. 
The stave although taken from the same stick, 
will vary in weight, often as much as 10 grains, 
depending upon the thickness of the year marks. 
After reducing all shafts to practically the 
same size they are cut to the same length and 
the nock end of the shaft is provided with a V 
shaped slot for receiving the nock, which is 
placed there to prevent splitting by the string. 
The making of that slot is troublesome. It may 
be done by holding the rounded shaft in the 
vise, having provided a split block in which a 
hole has been bored approximately the size of 
the shaft, and which is used as a clamp in the 
vise to avoid bruising the shaft. A fine tooth 
hacksaw may be used. By fine tooth hacksaw 
I mean one made for sawing tubing, in which 
the teeth are double set; that is, two teeth are 
set to the right and then two to the left. The 
best one is the Globe, on sale by all first-class 
hardware dealers. Later I will refer to a coarse 
hacksaw which has the single set, such as the 
well-known Star. It goes without saying that 
a hacksaw, to be of service in working wood, 
should never be used on metal. 
The slot for the nock may be sawed out 
carefully and finished with a knife-edge file. 
I have, however, long since abandoned that plan 
and instead use a circular saw specially made 
by myself for that purpose. It is 4V2 inches in 
diameter, has regular saw teeth on the periphery, 
a cross section of one-half of which shows the 
V shape, the saw being % of an inch thick at 
the center and brought to a feather edge at the 
periphery. Long slots are cut in the saw on a 
tangent with a circle, the periphery of which 
is % of an inch outside of the mandril hole. 
These slots are four in number and are them¬ 
selves provided with teeth, the clearance being 
secured by grinding away the metal back of the 
teeth. I realize that this is an imperfect de¬ 
scription but I am endeavoring to describe the 
process without the aid of drawings and illus¬ 
trations. The saw mentioned is driven at about 
3.000 R.P.M. and although crude in appearance 
and design does the \york well and almost in¬ 
stantly, whereas the making of the slot by hand 
it tedious and unsatisfactory and is often the 
cause of ruining a partially completed shaft. 
Various materials, including hard wood, 
horn, shell, bone, ivory and metal, are used for 
nocking the arrow but the ordinary red wood- 
fiber, such as is extensively used in electrical 
work, is the best. It takes the glue well and 
gives the desired contrast in color, besides be¬ 
ing exceedingly tough. The notch for the string 
should, however, be made across the grain. I 
have never known a fiber nock to split except 
when struck by another arrow. The nock is 
first reduced to the shape of a wedge 1% inches 
long and approximately the size of the V shaped 
slot made to receive it and may be readily 
worked into shape by sawing with a fine tooth 
backed saw. A coarse hacksaw is better. The 
best plan, however, is to secure a strip a foot 
long and % of an inch thick and 1% inches 
wide, glue or screw the strip flatwise with brass 
screws on a strip of wood, which has been 
beveled on one edge at such an angle that 
when the wood is flat on the saw table a vertical 
line will pass from the corner of one edge to 
the opposite corner on the other side and 
divide the strip of fiber in two long wedge- 
shaped sections. With a fine-tooth, cross-cut, 
circular saw rip the strip of fiber from one 
end to the other. The brass screws will not 
injure the saw. This will produce the long, 
wedge-shaped strips referred to, and sections may 
be readily cut therefrom with a coarse hack or 
backed saw or on the circular saw. These sec¬ 
tions approximately the shape of the nock to be 
placed in the V shaped slot. This method saves 
a vast amount of work and produces nocks of 
uniform size. The contact surfaces of the fiber 
and of the slot are then covered with glue, the 
fiber inserted in the slot and clamped as with 
the footing until the glue has thoroughly dried. 
The result of the foregoing operations is a round 
shaft approximately 11-32 of an inch in diameter, 
and of a length best suited to the archer, which 
under no circumstances should be more than 28 
inches unless the archer possesses arms of un¬ 
usual length and uses a bow longer than six 
feet. I hold that a six foot bow of the type of 
the English long bow, drawn more than 28 
inches is abused, and will not last. The shaft as 
so far finished, will produce an arrow of approxi¬ 
mately 5 shillings in weight, which is too heavy 
for a bow under 55 pounds. For weaker bows 
the shaft should be reduced in diameter. The 
rounded shaft is again placed in the grooved 
board and the nock end given a gradual taper 
with a very light cutting plane, or a wood rasp 
or mill-cut file, beginning 6 inches from the nock 
end and gradually tapering to a diameter of 9-32 
of an inch at the extreme end of the nock. The 
nock end is then rounded with a fine mill-cut 
file, or what is best, a coarse emery wheel. The 
notch for the string may be made in numerous 
ways, either with two cuts of a coarse hacksaw 
and then finished with a round-edged flat file, 
or with a circular saw 4 inches in diameter and 
equal in thickness to the finished notch, and 
rounded on the periphery to conform to the notch 
to the bow strings. Such a saw must be kept 
sharp and travel at a high rate of speed, 3,000 
or more. Otherwise it will tear the fiber. In 
cutting the V shaped slot it should be cut with 
the grain of the shaft. This will permit the 
string notch to be cut at right angles with the 
grain of the shaft, thereby permitting the arrow 
to ride the bow on the edge of the grain rather 
than on the flake. This is essential for two 
reasons. The arrow is stiffer in that direction 
and withstands the slap on the bow better. The 
other reason is that the arrow will not wear 
away as it would if it rides the bow on the flake. 
The notches in all arrows should be 3-16 of an 
inch deep, and uniform in width. They should 
so fit the bow string as to support the weight of 
the arrow when placed on the string and sus¬ 
pended therefrom, but the string should be made 
to fit the notch instead of attempting to make 
the notch fit the string. 
The pile or arrowhead is a thimble made of 
steel, % of an inch long, and may be secured 
from E. I. Horsman & Co., or of Mr. James Duff, 
manufacturer of archery tackle, or possibly from 
Ambercrombie & Fitch of New York, who, I 
understand, have added archery tackle to their 
stock. I have never been able to secure a satis¬ 
factory pile. I make my own, using cylindrical 
sections of the required length cut from Shelby 
steel tubing. 
Adirondack Guides Like Buck Law 
Watertown, N. Y., January 10, 1914.—At the 
annual meeting of the Brown Tract Guide As¬ 
sociation at Old Forge, ending to-day, three 
hundred Adirondack guides, tired of the fre¬ 
quently shifting game laws, voted themselves 
satisfied with the present buck law and favor its 
continuance. 
They say that never in their experience has 
there been as adequate and protective a measure 
as that now on the books forbidding the killing 
of deer with horns less than three inches in 
length. 
Shortening the season at its snow end is the 
only change they suggest. More deer were 
killed in the last week of the season when there 
was snow this year than during the rest of the 
season. The guides believe also that foxes 
should be protected from March to November. 
