Dec. 2, 1911.J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
823 
Some Good Reasons 
Why You Should Shoot 
THE 
PARKER 
GUN 
B© high man at the traps. 
Shoot th© finest brush gun made. 
Mechanical construction perfect. 
Send today for illustrated catalogue. 
PARKER 
New York Salesrooms: 32 Warren St. 
BROS. 
Meriden, Conn. 
AMERICAN DUCK SHOOTING 
By George "Bird Grinnell 
Describes every species of duck, goose and swan known to North America; tells of the various methods of 
capturing each, the guns, ammunition, loads, decoys and boats used in the sport, and gives the best account 
ever published of the retrieving Chesapeake Bay Dog. 
About 600 pages, j8 portraits of fowl, 8 juli-page plates. Price, Sj.JO postpaid. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO.. 127 Franklin Street. NEW YORK 
Gunns Laws in Brief 
A new and revised edition for the season 1911=1912 has just been 
published and is now ready for delivery. 
It gives all the fish and game laws of the United States and Canada. It is complete 
and so accurate that the editor can afford to pay a reward for an error found in it. 
“If the Brief says so, you may depend upon it. ” Soid by all dealers, or by mail by 
us. Price, twenty five cents. 
Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 127 Franklin St., New York 
double, 32-inch barrels, heavily inlaid with go'd, 
with deeply cut engravings all' over it, 8 pounds 
in weight and top heavy, very round and thick 
in the “hand,” very short and crooked in the 
stock; how does that strike you for a descrip¬ 
tion? It is a tolerably accurate one. all the 
same, and gives a pretty good picture of the gun 
that Manton made for my grandfather, and 
which left him 55 guineas the poorer after he 
paid for it. With two drachms of black powder 
and an ounce of shot (No. 6), it gave an aver- 
age pattern of a hundred or so at forty yards; 
the flint and steel ignition rendered it vexatiously 
slow, and. it kicked like a mule. What is the 
use of going into hysterics over a gun enjoying 
such characteristics simply because it was, and 
is, a genuine Joe Manton? Not that I would 
part with it on any consideration, nor would I 
use it; it has its value as a relic of the past, as 
have also its companions in the cabinet—a Cheva¬ 
lier trout rod, a pair of old duelling pistols made 
by Rigby of Dublin, in Dublin (not in Birming¬ 
ham), and a Toledo-blade sword. 
But stock, lock and barrels laid on the table 
side by side with stock, lock and barrels of a 
1911 hammerless ejector by any good maker, I 
care not who he is, and what a contrast we have 
at once! Those who talk and write so glibly 
of the beauties of the “old masters” seem to me 
to be ignorant of the handicraft of the new 
ones. The delicately chiseled oval hand of the 
modern gun that fits your grasp so comfortably 
3 a ^ 0ve the round, broomstick-shaped 
“hand” of the ancient weapons, while the heavy 
metal or brass heel-plate of the latter is crude 
m the extreme when compared with the neatly 
cross-cut figure of your latter day gun. And so 
on by way of comparison, the result being dead 
against the Manton gun, or that of any other 
maker of the time. 
Ab this being so it is hard to understand why 
the breechloader when it first came out met with 
so much opposition. For the transition from the 
flint to the percussion was not much of a step; 
it was an improved form of ignition only, and 
left the gun still a muzzleloader. The percus¬ 
sion gun came in and, to speak vulgarly, “caught 
on, ’' as mentioned in a recent article. The per¬ 
cussion muzz’eloader may still be found in use 
as regards the larger bores among some of the 
older, school of wildfowlers. Anyway, the de- 
tonating muzzleloader held sway for years, and 
then Lefauchaux introduced the pm-fire breech¬ 
loader. Whether Lefauchaux was really the in¬ 
ventor of the breech’oader principle or not I 
cannot say; I believe there is a doubt about it. 
All the same, he introduced the pin-fire breech¬ 
loader into these countries in the form of the 
French pattern gun with metal fore-end. Need¬ 
ham, Dougall and Henry Egg (not Durs Egg) 
rapidly improved on the Frenchman’s invention, 
and so the sliding barrels came about, only to 
give place quickly to the under-lever principle, 
the strongest ever invented from that day to 
this, and seen now on even the most recent of 
modern guns intended for rough or hard work 
abroad. 
As just stated, the new breechloaders did not 
get a very popular reception at first. Some folks 
say they shot so badly when they first came out 
th^t no one would use them, the muzzleloaders 
shooting so much better. But I have exnerience 
of both the muzzleloader and the breechloader. 
I he new breechloaders loaded with three drachms 
of powder and an ounce and an eighth of shot 
gave average patterns at forty yards of from 
ninety to a hundred or perhaps a little better. 
Men in those days did not go in for target work 
as they do now, and few men ever tried or 
plated their muzzleloaders. Therefore, they did 
not know what patterns their muzzleloaders gave. 
They shot game and rabbits with them and used 
them generally for all-round work in the field. 
I repeat, though, they seldom actually “plated” 
them at the target, could not speak'authorita¬ 
tively respecting their pattern or penetration, and 
consequently had no right to say they were su¬ 
perior to. the newly introduced breech'oaders_ 
an assertion they committed themselves to and 
for a long time obstinately adhered to. It is 
open to doubt, though, if the pin-fire gun would 
have ever ousted the muzzleloader if left to it¬ 
self, but the pin-fire so quickly gave place to the 
far and away superior central fire, and the latter 
almost immediately showed it had come to stay, 
so the poor old muzzleloader had to retire to 
the realms of obscurity and a well-earned rest.— 
Shooting Times. 
MAINTAINING PURE WATER SUPPLY. 
Secretary Wilson has decided that the in¬ 
terests of cities and towns which obtain their 
water from streams having their watersheds 
within National forests call for special measures 
of protection, and he has therefore developed a 
plan of co-operation for the Department of 
Agriculture with those communities which are 
alive to the importance of keeping their water 
supply pure. 
There are many Western towns and cities, 
some of them of large size, which derive their 
water from drainage basins lying inside the 
National forests. One of the recognized objects 
of forestry is to insure the permanence and pro¬ 
tect the purity of municipal water supplies. As 
the forests are maintained for the benefit of the 
public. Secretary Wilson considers it the duty 
of his department to do all that it can, both to 
prevent the pollution of such supplies and to 
create or maintain conditions most favorable to 
a constant flow of clear water. 
Stock raising and occupancy of the land for 
the various kinds of use which are ordinarily 
encouraged on the National forests may be 
highly undesirable if allowed on drainage basins 
which are the sources of drinking water. There 
is also to be considered the injury which may be 
done if the water is silt-laden. By protecting 
and improving the forest cover and by enforc¬ 
ing special regulations to minimize erosion and 
to provide for the maintenance of sanitary con¬ 
ditions, the Government will try to safeguard 
the interests of the public. 
A form of agreement has been drawn up, pro¬ 
viding that, when co-operation is entered into 
between the Secretary of Agriculture and any 
city desiring conservation and protection of its 
water supply, the Secretary will not permit the 
use of the land involved without approval by the 
town or city except for the protection and care 
of the forests, marking, cutting and disposing 
of timber which the forest officers find may be 
removed without injury to the water supply of 
the city, or for the building of roads, trails, 
telephone lines, etc., not inconsistent with the 
objects of the agreement, or lor rights of way 
acquired under acts of Congress. The Secre¬ 
tary also agrees to require all persons employed 
on or occupying any of the land both to comply 
with the regulations governings National forests 
and to observe all sanitary regulations which 
the city may propose and the Secretary approve. 
The agreement provides for the extension and 
improvement of the forests on the part of the 
Government by seeding and planting and the 
best methods of silviculture and forest manage¬ 
ment, so far as the funds available will permit. 
The city on its side is expected to assist in the 
work by paying the salaries of the additional 
guards necessary to carry out the agreement, 
and in case extensive forest operations are im¬ 
mediately desired by the city, it would bear the 
major part of the cost entailed by this work. 
