952 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The Old Kit Bag 
T HE old kit does look a little disreputable as 
you drag it out and dump its contents on 
the floor or on the bed. To the careful 
housewife it is an object of deepest concern, a 
constant reminder of man’s slovenliness, and one 
of the mysteries with which the feminine mind 
engages when this yearly reversion of the head 
of the house toward cave dwelling, or tent 
dwelling, rather, atavistically manifests itself. 
Yet a good many dollars would look small be¬ 
side that old bag. Its disorderly contents fur¬ 
nish a store of adventure, a series of reminis¬ 
cences, a recollection of past happiness, and a 
hint of equally good times to come, that put it' 
above all price. To the casual looker-on that 
thing you pick up and hold in your hand is only 
a battered and very disreputable hat, but as 
you straighten it out, some way the noise of the 
city outside ceases. You hear a bird singing; 
the sun is just peeping over the mountain, and 
the blue smoke of the morning camp fire,, with 
its pleasant, pungent odor, weaves a delicate 
tracery as it mounts toward the pines. The bacon 
is on the fire, and out there, where widening rip¬ 
ples show, a big trout is rising. You will have 
to go after that fellow pretty soon. 
That old cartridge belt! Good gracious, it’s 
been two years now since you buckled it around 
you up in New Brunswick, while your guide 
smiled at this evidence of the city sportsman’s 
ways. But just the same, as you came in that 
night, tired to the bone, and wet to the skin, you 
had the proud satisfaction of knowing that few 
if any larger heads would go out of the Prov¬ 
ince that fall. You were glad to crawl into the 
tent, and peel off the soaked clothing—why, 
there is that same blue shirt now, just as you 
folded it up when you started home—-and you 
were too sleepy, almost, to crawl out again for 
the late supper under the lean-to. 
Then—but the screech of the automobile horn, 
and mayhap a gentle reminder that it is time 
to put all that mess away, bring you back to the 
city. Never mind. The winter is over. You 
heard a song sparrow in the park this morning, 
and pretty soon, even away up north, the lakes 
will be shining blue again. At any time, to-day, 
perhaps, will come that wire for which you have 
waited so long, “the ice is out.” 
Moses and The Moderns 
W E all know what usually happens to the 
man who walks off with his neighbor’s 
property. Suppose an abandoned char¬ 
acter set fire to a wheat field ready for the 
reaper? The whole community would rise up 
against him, and justly, too. Yet the loss result¬ 
ing from such a crime can be measured in a 
limited number of dollars, not comparable with 
the destruction of the public’s property going on 
all around us. Why is it that so-called civiliza¬ 
tion pursues relentlessly the petty offender ignor¬ 
ing, meanwhile, its own derelictions? What is 
the loss of one or ten fields of wheat, contrasted 
with the destruction of hundreds of tons of valu¬ 
able food occasioned by the pouring of sewage 
or factory waste into any navigable stream? Yet 
that crime is going on every day, with the pub¬ 
lic’s consent and sanction. More than that, the 
public is content to poison not only fish, but hu¬ 
man life as well, by dumping filth into waters 
that it knows its neighbors must drink. The 
great city of New York, having just spent up¬ 
wards of two hundred million dollars in provid¬ 
ing itself with a pure water supply, is having 
the fight of its life against the state for which it 
provides most of the taxes, to prevent that state 
from putting on the watershed draining into the 
city’s reservoirs, an asylum or reformatory. 
The case of New York City may be striking, 
but it is not exceptional, for similar instances 
can be cited by the hundreds. We boast of our 
advancement, our enlightenment, but somehow 
those of us who are old fashioned enough to turn 
back to Biblical instances begin to have new re¬ 
spect for Moses as a sanitary engineer and as a 
wise conservationist, even though he may have 
permitted the Israelites to exceed the bag limit 
when they met up with the quail. Also, there is 
a lingering feeling of regret that some of the 
punishments laid down—in Deuteronomy, for 
example—are no longer enforceable. 
American Ph.asant Breeding and Shooting 
W ITHOUT flourish of arms, actual or in 
the metaphorical sense, E. A. Quarles, 
of the American Game Protective As¬ 
sociation, has written a book that bids fair to 
be an American outdoor classic. More than that, 
it will hold rank against all future comers as 
the first American book on the subject of the 
pheasant as a game bird that can be brought 
within the range of intelligent and profitable 
breeding. We may lament the fact that the 
ruffed grouse is disappearing, and that it is even 
becoming necessary to think of substitution, but 
that is neither here nor there. We are confront¬ 
ed with a condition and not a theory. Not to go 
into the maze of argument which outcrops when¬ 
ever this subject is brought up, we know that the 
English or imported pheasant can be bred suc¬ 
cessfully in captivity, and that liberated, it is a 
game bird that rivals our own Bonasa umbellus. 
Therefore, since we are losing one and can still 
have the other, it would be the height of folly 
to neglect the opportunity of providing good 
shooting for the future. 
When we stop to think of the thousands and 
tens of thousands of acres of waste land to be 
found in every state, all capable of abundant 
game propagation and yet absolutely barren of 
wild life, either because of reckless shooting or 
other reasons, and further, that every acre of 
such territory might be made to yield a harvest 
of game as certain as the crops of the farmer, 
and as valuable, we begin to have some faint 
idea of the economic loss the country sustains by 
reason of its neglect, indifference, or ignorance. 
It seems absurd that native game in a country 
like the United States is disappearing, but we 
know that it is. If, by means of legislation it 
can be restored, then there is no reason to talk 
of rearing substitute forms of wild life. But 
while the argument is going on, the game is 
going out. What, then, are we to do? 
The answer is, keep what we have left, in¬ 
crease the supply if possible, but above all else 
augment it by new stock. That is where the 
imported—now really domestic—pheasant comes 
in. The bird is here to stay. It has proven its 
adaptability, its worth, its actual game qualities. 
It is a delight to the shooter, a choice addition 
to the game bag, and last but not least, a valu¬ 
able insect destroyer. There is no reason why 
every farmer and sportsmen’s organization with 
territory worth mentioning should not be a 
pheasant breeder. We would not talk so strong¬ 
ly were it not for the fact that Mr. Quarles’ 
book is now available, to substantiate every as¬ 
sertion made here; and to answer the innumer¬ 
able questions that those seeking information 
will propound. 
Tempest In An English Tea Pot 
A MONG the inalienable rights which our 
good English cousins hold as the most 
precious of their liberties is that of 
“writing to the Editor” on any topic of pub¬ 
lic interest. A thoroughly commendable cus¬ 
tom, for it serves not only to relieve the mind, 
but occasionally brings about desirable reforms. 
The “letters to the editor” of the “London Times,” 
for instance, have long been a joy to casual 
American readers, who perhaps regard them in 
a ribald spirit not at all in keeping with the 
gravity with which they are accepted on the 
other side of the water. 
It is with mixed feelings, therefore, that we 
note the raging of literary controversy that is 
agitating the angling world of England, the in¬ 
nocent occasion of which is Forest and Stream. 
Not so long ago this paper printed a review of 
Mr. F. G. Shaw’s English book “The Complete 
Science of Fly-Fishing and Spinning.” The re¬ 
view was written at the request of the editor of 
Forest and Stream by Mr. Charles Zibecn 
Southard, the eminent American angling author¬ 
ity, and was not only fair and impartial, but 
like everything else that Mr. Southard writes, 
extremely interesting. In his article he pointed 
out some of the differences that prevail in Amer¬ 
ican and English angling, particularly in meth¬ 
ods of casting and the adjustment of tackle. 
Readers may recall that Mr. Southard had some¬ 
thing to say on the subject of “supple” and 
“stiff” wrist casting. This came under the eye 
of Mr. Marston, editor of the English “Fishing 
Gazette,” an angler much beloved and respected 
in America, and he proceeded to add the weight 
of his expert opinion on the question. In this 
labor for the good of the cause, however, he 
trod on the toes of the unhappy author of the 
book—the primordial cause, so to speak, of the 
whole issue—and that gentleman, nothing loath, 
rose at once to defend himself in print. By this 
time a few dozen, more or less, of interested 
anglers—country gentlemen, squires, and experts, 
everyone—injected themselves into the contro¬ 
versy, which is rather heated, to say the 
least. At last accounts the issue had become 
somewhat confused, but the enthusiasm was in¬ 
tense, and while there was some doubt whether 
Mr. Shaw, Mr. Southard, or Mr. Marston had 
the best of it, there was none whatever that the 
different factions were hanging grimly to their 
trenches. As for Forest and Stream —well, this 
nation is supposed, diplomatically, to be neutral. 
