272 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Aug. 31, 1912 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
Charles Otis, President. 
\V. G. Beecroft, Secretary. S. J. Gibson, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
CORRESPONDENCE — Forest and Stream is the 
recognized medium of entertainment, instruction and in¬ 
formation between American sportsmen. The editors 
invite communications on the subjects to which its pages 
are devoted, but, of course, are not responsible for the 
views of correspondents. Anonymous communications 
cannot be regarded. 
SUBSCRIPTIONS: $3 a year; $1.50 for six months; 
10 cts. a copy. Canadian, $4 a year; foreign, $4.50 a year. 
This paper may be obtained of newsdealers throughout 
the United States, Canada and Great Britain. Foreign 
Subscription and Sales Agents—London: Davies & Co., 
1 Finch Lane; Sampson, Low & Co. Paris: Brentano’s. 
ADVERTISEMENTS : Display and classified, 20 cts. 
per agate line ($2.80 per inch). There are 14 agate lines to 
the inch. Covers and special positions extra. Five, 
ten and twenty per cent, discount for 13, 26 and 52 inser¬ 
tions, respectively, within one year. Forms close Monday 
in advance of publication date. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
GAME FARMING. 
Game farming is a comparatively new occu¬ 
pation in the United States. It should be re¬ 
membered, however, that until a short time ago 
scientific forestry was practically unknown. Both 
are destined to play a large part in our economic 
life, and the former is especially important in 
its bearing on the cost of living. 
The energies of those of our citizens who 
take an interest in wild things have mostly been 
expended in exterminating them. In this they 
have been so successful that during the last 
twenty years many States have found themselves 
practically barren of the wild life that once fur¬ 
nished food and a means of healthful recreation 
to their inhabitants. Obviously something had 
to be done to remedy this state of affairs. 
Sportsmen were paying out good money every 
year for hunting licenses, and it seemed incum¬ 
bent on the game commissioners to furnish them 
with something to hunt. Otherwise the office of 
game commissioner would soon have become a 
superfluous one. 
Accordingly they took a leaf out of Europe’s 
book of experience and started in to raise game. 
As pheasants had been successfully propagated 
in the old country for centuries, and had al¬ 
ready gained a foothold in Washington and Ore¬ 
gon, they not unnaturally turned to these birds 
to lead them out of their difficulties. They 
wanted results, and they had to have them 
quickly. There was no time for experimenting 
with our native birds, which might, or might not, 
thrive in confinement. 
The different State farms have had good suc¬ 
cess with pheasants. In some parts of the coun¬ 
try there is now very fair pheasant shooting, but 
people began to ask why so much money was 
being expended on foreign birds when we have 
in our native quail, ruffed grouse and wild tur¬ 
keys some of the best game birds in the world. 
In response to this query, scattered attempts 
were made at rearing indigenous species, but 
from the outset they have been beset by serious 
difficulties. That as yet little understood malady, 
the quail disease, has killed hundreds of birds 
hatched in captivity. Ruffed grouse and turkeys 
have also proved delicate when removed from 
their natural environment. However, a few peo¬ 
ple have been notably successful in raising these 
birds. They have realized that the problem is 
one which must be approached in the scientific 
spirit and studied carefully. They remembered 
that the gamekeepers of Europe belong to a race 
of gamekeepers, and that the secrets of success 
in rearing European game birds have been 
handed down from father to son for hundreds 
of years. They were not dismayed then because 
they failed at the beginning, and each year sees 
more people attacking the problem a solution of 
which will make it possible to restock the suit¬ 
able land, which can be found in every State of 
the Union to-day, with the birds which were once 
so plentiful. 
FUR SEALS PROTECTED. 
Some years ago Ralph D. Paine, a prominent 
author, living in Massachusetts, wrote the writer 
of this for advice as to where he could buy 
a donkey for his “kids.” He said, among other 
things: “There are no donkeys in Massachu¬ 
setts ; we send them all to the Legislature.” 
Mr. Paine perhaps exaggerated when he said 
“all,” but the handling of game and fish legis¬ 
lation at Washington leads to the conclusion that 
most States send some donkeys to Congress. 
Even when useful game legislation is put through 
it is done by “compromise,” as attested in the 
following news item: 
“By a compromise in the Senate and Plouse 
Committee conferring on the fur seal conven¬ 
tion, a close season of five years has been de¬ 
clared. To the committee’s agreement Congress 
has assented. The treaty provides for the sus¬ 
pension, if necessary, to preserve the herd.” 
Il r 0 ok much labor and explanation on the 
part of Henry W. Elliott, a well known author¬ 
ity on the fur seal, to convince legislators that 
a close season is necessary to preserve the herd 
of which “yearlings,” “small pups” and “extra 
small pups” have become the Government’s stock 
in trade in a herd that once numbered millions 
of adults. 
EXPENSIVE TROPHIES. 
The danger of having too valuable trophies in 
yacht races was shown in the contention over 
the Wrigley trophy for speed boats at the recent 
Chicago carnival. The trophy is said to be worth 
many thousand dollars, in addition to which a 
cash prize of $1,500 was a further inducement. 
The race was between Baby Reliance IT. and 
Disturber III. The regatta committee awarded 
the prize and trophy to Baby Reliance II., where¬ 
upon her competitor lived up to her name and 
created a disturbance in the form of an injunc¬ 
tion, restraining the yacht committee from 
awarding the race to Baby Reliance II. Too 
much prize and too little sportsmanship is the 
result of Mr. Wrigley’s misguided effort to ad¬ 
vance speed boat racing. Just wherein lies the 
fault, and to whom the cup rightfully belonged, 
has no part in our argument. Every regatta 
brings a protest or disqualification, but they gen¬ 
erally are amicably settled because the average 
trophy has no great intrinsic value, and the loser 
always has a chance to try again against the vic¬ 
tor. In this case, however, the inducement was 
so large as to cause sportsmanship to give 
way to hard feeling. There should be a 
limited value placed on cups offered. It is not 
the amount of silver or gold in the trophy that 
brings competition from true sportsmen. They 
will make the same effort for a fifty dollar cup 
as for a trophy worth $5,000, for in each case 
they will go in to win, and the losers will give 
in gracefully, with an eye for the next oppor¬ 
tunity to beat the feilow who beat them. Let 
us eliminate all cash prizes and offer substantial 
but not expensive cups and keep the sport of 
yacht racing the wholesome thing it always has 
been. 
WILD DUCK DISEASE. 
Dr. John S. Buckley, of the pathological 
division of the Bureau of Animal Industry of 
the Department of Agriculture, has been directed 
to go to Salt Lake City, Utah, to investigate a 
mysterious disease in the flock of wild ducks 
which breed in the marshes surrounding Great 
Salt Lake. Dr. Buckley, • who is in Nebraska, 
will proceed at once to Utah and begin an in¬ 
vestigation of the malady. The attention of the 
division of pathology was called to the epidemic 
among the wild ducks by the American Game 
Protective Association, which has headquarters 
in New York city. The association called on 
the Biological Survey for aid in combatting the 
disease, the Survey enlisting the aid and co¬ 
operation of the division of pathology. Dr. A. 
K. Fisher, of the Biological Survey, estimates 
that more than two million of wild ducks died 
in the marshes surrounding the lake during the 
past year. The disease that almost exterminated 
the ducks has been diagnosed as coccidiosis, a 
disease common among domestic fowls of all 
kinds. An outbreak of the same fatal disease 
occurred among certain sorts of wild birds in 
the District of Columbia during last summer, 
blackbirds or purple grackles apparently being 
the worst affected. 
It was decided by the Biological Survey that 
the birds contracted the disease by feeding in 
poultry yards where hens were suffering with 
coccidiosis. This, however, cannot be assigned 
as the cause of the epidemic among the wild 
ducks of Salt Lake. It is reported that the dis¬ 
ease is making even greater havoc among the 
wild ducks this year than in former years, and 
fears are felt that the breeding flocks may be¬ 
come exterminated if some method of ending 
the epidemic is not speedily found. 
More than 50,000 exhibits from the Copper 
Mine River section and adjacent islands in the 
arctic ocean will be added to the American 
Museum of Natural History this winter as the 
fruit of the Stefansen expedition, now in the 
North. Mr. Stefanson, who is at Point Barrow, 
Alaska, telegraphs this week a report of the 
remarkable success of his quest for natural his¬ 
tory specimens which are being packed for ship¬ 
ment via San Francisco where they are expected 
to arrive early in November. 
