March 29, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
399 
Tanning Hides. 
Buffalo, N. Y., March 22 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: M’ill you not be kind enough to 
ask your readers for me for the following in¬ 
formation : 
First—A simple formula and explicit direc¬ 
tions for tanning small pelts with the fur on. 
Second—Some way of making the tanned 
pelt soft and pliable when finished. 
I know there are many ways of tanning 
skins, but most of them are more or less com¬ 
plicated and the materials often difficult to ob¬ 
tain. I have tanned a good many small pelts 
with more or less success, though with, usually 
more than less trouble, only to* have it come 
out hard and stiff as a board. The stereotyped 
directions for remedying this condition are to 
“work the skin back and forth across the edge 
of a board.” 
In all my experience I have only once suc¬ 
ceeded in softening a skin, even after working 
on it until it wore out. The formula used in 
this one successful case I lost. 
I have now a black squirrel skin which I 
tanned by means of salt and sulphuric acid, as 
follows: 
1. Rub with salt, roll up, let lie over night. 
2. Clean away all fat and grease. 
3. Soak two days in a solution made as fol¬ 
lows: Boil one quart of salt in one gallon of 
water, add one ounce of sulphuric acid. 
4. When partly dry work over edge of 
board, etc. 
Now this skin looks all right, just like a 
piece of coarse chamois in texture; but it is hard 
and stiff, although I have even doubled it up 
and rolled the crease between the palms of my 
hands for a long time. Again, I have before 
me a field mouse skin tanned all right (?), but 
so stiff that it crackles as I handle it. 
The skins of many of the smallest mammals 
are very beautiful when considered as fur, and 
are always interesting and pleasing to most 
persons. This is especially so if they can be 
rendered perfectly soft and pliable, such as the 
leather of kid gloves or the -small furs of re¬ 
tail trade. 
I feel sure the subject would be of con¬ 
siderable interest to many of us, and if some of 
your readers who are successful in these direc¬ 
tions would give us a little advice and instruc¬ 
tion, I for one would be very grateful. 
Edward A. Eames. 
Goose-fish and Black Woodchuck. 
Philadelphia, Pa., March 10. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: In your issue of March i there 
appeared an article by your Brewer, Me., cor¬ 
respondent, W. M. Hardy, on goose-fish and 
black woodchuck, which interested me. He 
speaks of mention being made in a former 
article on Feb. 8. The writer referred to a 
black woodchuck as a rarity. I wish to say at 
this point that while I have been a resident of 
Philadelphia many years, I was raised as a boy 
and young man in Essex county, Vermont, and 
at that time black woodchucks were numerous. 
I call to mind one family of them had their 
burrow under the rough cobblestone foundation 
of an old sugar camp, and there always appeared 
to be a black woodchuck in each litter for a 
number of years. In my experience I should say 
they were the same size and weight-as the rest 
of the family, but for some reason were shy. 
Now, in regard to the goose or monk-fish. 
Three years ago I was on Monhegan Island. 
While fishing for cod, we hooked a monk-fish, 
and he was a villainous looking customer, and 
when cut open his stomach was filled with sea 
birds, lobsters, etc. He appeared to me a vora¬ 
cious feeder, and with an enormous capacity for 
almost anything that came his way. 
H. L. Shaw. 
Game and Forest Protection in Vermont. 
Woodford, Vt., March 18. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: Now that the legislative business 
is over up here, we are planning in the Fish 
and Game Club to concentrate our attention on 
a patrol. To put a man in the field for a year 
will take quite a bit of money, and my plan for 
raising this is as follows: The club can very 
properly take steps to protect the forests and 
streams, as well as the fish and game, and ac¬ 
cordingly I propose to have the patrol a fire 
patrol as well as game patrol. There are seven¬ 
teen towns in the county, and I am going to 
ask each town to contribute $25. It is within 
the power of the three selectmen of each town 
to do this. I am already unofficially assured of 
the Woodford and Bennington contributions. 
Then I mean to approach the large owners of 
timber land, of whom there are several. There 
are also three water power corporations in the 
county that are interested in the protection of 
the forests. I hope then to be able to get the 
State to contribute. Something can be done 
in a small way with personal contributions, per¬ 
haps a lecture to which admission will be 
charged, and, as has been suggested, perhaps 
some kind of a game dinner. The amount which 
can be realized in these ways, however, is rela¬ 
tively very small, though the value of these last 
three methods in stirring up enthusiasm and 
under.ctanding is great. Under this plan, it is 
probable that the amount contributed by those 
interested chiefly in fire prevention will equal, 
if it does not exceed, that obtained from strictly 
game protection .sources. All through the sum¬ 
mer, however, the patrol will be doing quite 
as much fire prevention as game protection. 
I want to strike a different note in all of 
this work from any other that I know of. I 
want to create a real sentiment in favor of 
game protection, where I can assure you that 
there is none now, and an intelligent under¬ 
standing and co-operation in fire prevention. 
We have had very few fires, but they are bound 
to come unless this change is brought about. 
There is nothing like the understanding of fire 
among hunters, fishermen and campers in the 
Green Mountains that there is in the Adiron- 
dacks. In prosecuting the fire work, I want to 
put up signs that will be different. The usual 
procedure is to have a copy of the laws in fine 
print, on cloth. If you have been very much in 
touch with social work in New York you know 
that the old signs against spitting were manda¬ 
tory and stated the penalty. The new ones 
read: “Please do not spit on the floor. To do 
so may spread disease.” It has been much more 
effective. I want to get out signs that will 
reason with the appeal tO' one rather than 
threaten. A few signs will not do any good, 
but if one meets them often enough, I do not be¬ 
lieve that they can fail to soak in. I think that 
is entirely feasible, but whether it is feasible to 
stir up any real sentiment for game protection 
in the mountain towns is quite another matter. 
However, I want tO' try it out, and the Fish 
and Game Club have so far approved of my 
methods. They are to get the patrol into the 
field, and let him enforce the law, decently and 
in order, 
I do not believe in the system of keep¬ 
ing a game warden at home until some 
one with a grudge against some one else tells, 
any more than I believe that New York city 
could be run if all the police were kept in the 
stations until some one ran in and made a 
complaint; at the same time I most emphatically 
do not believe in hushing up wrong if there is 
a concerted attempt being made to enforce the 
law. But here in Vermont at the present time 
there is no such attempt being made. Accord¬ 
ingly I keep to myself what I know about vio¬ 
lations, and the usual information about what is 
going on in the community still comes to me, 
though I am now president of a fish and game 
club and have expressed my intentions about a 
patrol quite clearly. While I have stated that 
I propose to have the law enforced if I am able, 
I have also stated that I propose tO' go about it 
in a certain way. Either I am believed, or 
else they have classed me with those good 
wardens who don’t want to tell on their friends. 
It led to an amusing situation yesterday, which 
was annual town meeting day. 
As chairman of a legislative committee look¬ 
ing after the town’s interest in water power 
matters, I was making a report, and branched 
out from the private lake restriction to tell of 
some lectures that the club will give, to en¬ 
courage a deeper interest in the preservation of 
wild life, promote better hunting and fishing, 
protect the cover, etc. I said that I would 
have a lot of free tickets, would pass them 
around, and that the Fish and Game Club 
promised good pictures, an interesting lecture, 
and a welcome to everyone. All the time I was 
face to face with good friends of mine who 
violate the laws, and I grinned at them, and 
they grinned at me. It was precisely Kipling’s 
situation: 
“They knew ’e stole; ’e knew they knowed; 
They didn’t tell nor make a fuss. 
But winked at ’Omer down the road. 
An’ ’e winked back—the same as us.” 
I am flattering myself that I have convinced 
the people immediately around here that I am 
ill earnest, but that I am going about it in a 
certain way. They are so far perfectly cheerful 
about it, and to me, and that is a step in the 
direction of my program. 
First—To create a sentiment in favor of 
observance of the law, in places where there 
has been none before. 
Second—To enforce the law anyway, 
whether the sentiment exists or not. This alone 
will help to create sentiment. 
Warwick S. Carpenter. 
Lon Hoyle, of Canaan, Pa., young at eighty- 
three, shot a silver gray fox. Its pelt is beauti¬ 
fully marked, and its value will run into enough 
money to keep the old trapper for at least a few 
short winters. Hoyle says it has taken him 
seventy-five years to get this beauty. 
