Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1909. 
VOL. LXXIL—No. 10, 
No. 127 Franklin St.. New York 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary. 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
127 Franklm Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
TO OUR NEW READERS. 
During the past few months the great Forest 
AND Stream family has been growing beyond 
all precedent. Many of its new members know 
the paper merely by name and reputation and 
are only now beginning to learn all it is and 
all it represents. 
To each one of these new readers we extend 
a cordial welcome. Though we say it—who, 
perhaps, should not—they have joined a goodly 
company; the hearty, breezy folk who believe 
in and practice and preach the wholesome up¬ 
lifting gospel of rational outdoor life. It is a 
gospel whose practice tends to keep body, mind 
and soul clean, healthy and cheerful, to make 
people look on the bright side, and view with 
kindliness the doings of their fellow men, to 
live better, and to work better and harder. 
From cover to cover Forest and Stream is 
as interesting as it is wholesome. Its reading 
columns are a source of rare pleasure and real 
information. Its advertising pages are an index 
of all the various aids to the enjoyment of life 
in the open. Guns, ammunition, fishing tackle, 
canoes, dogs and supplies of a multitude of sorts 
—all the tools needed for carving out pleasant 
e.xcursions—are here described. These adver¬ 
tisers are a selected list as well. Many of them 
have been with us for twenty-five or thirty years 
and have our utmost confidence. They are al¬ 
ways glad to supply information, send catalogues 
or discuss the merits of their goods with possi¬ 
ble customers. By writing to them about the 
things they advertise you can secure much use¬ 
ful information. Do not fail then to read the 
advertising pages of Forest and Stream. 
A HINT FOR SPRING. 
No one can mark the invisible line which 
separates winter from spring—and for a very 
good reason. It does not exist. 
Winter is not a season of death as it is 
often called. Rather is it a period of re^t and 
recuperation—of the earth’s sleep; a period dur¬ 
ing which hidden forces are at work in prepara¬ 
tion for a future awakening. Just as the wearied 
body and mind of man are renewed and re¬ 
freshed by sleep, so the plants having bloomed 
and fruited through the summer begin to rest 
in autumn and winter, storing up meanwhile a 
reserve of energy against the time when the 
strengthening sun, the warm rains and the mild 
winds of spring shall rouse them from their 
quiet and call them into renewed activity above 
the ground. 
One must look sharply to see the first signs 
of reviving plant life, but if looked for they 
will be seen. Already over much of the land, 
where the winter has been mild, skunk cab¬ 
bage and snowdrop are in bloom, and the pend¬ 
ant catkins of alders sway in the soft breeze. 
The twigs of the trees -are full of sap and ere 
long the buds will begin to swell. Their open¬ 
ing may be hastened and brought close under 
the observer’s eye if some day, when he is 
abroad, he will cut a few twigs from the trees 
and bringing them home will place them in a 
jar of clean water and put them in the window, 
where the sun may shine on them. Then, in 
a short time, the buds will begin to open, and 
day by day may be seen a beautiful process of 
nature which might never be observed did it 
take place in the tree far above us. 
Cut the twigs with a smooth slanting stroke 
of the knife, and keep the water in which they 
stand clean. Do not put twigs of different sorts 
in the same jar, but have a vessel for each 
species. Try the soft maple, the cottonwood or 
poplar, the elm and the beech. Their opening 
will be a revelation to one who has never watch¬ 
ed the buds swell and burst, and seen the per¬ 
fect flower and the following leaves. Try also, 
if convenient, some twigs of fruit trees, cherry, 
plum and peach. At no cost and with no trouble 
you may have a window garden of tree flowers 
blooming under your own eye, long before the 
trees themselves have opened their buds. 
Spring is the time to be out-of-doors, for 
then he who has taught himself how to use his 
eyes may make all sorts of interesting dis¬ 
coveries. He should start his walks abroad be¬ 
times—the earlier the better. Already many 
things are growing, many birds arriving. Be¬ 
fore long the spring wonders will crowd so fast 
upon us that no single pair of eyes can see them 
all. Get out then into the open, and get out now. 
SPRING SHOOTING. 
There is in the charge of the Assembly Com¬ 
mittee on Fisheries and Game of the New York 
Legislature a bill to legalize the shooting of 
wildfowl in spring on Long Island waters. It 
was introduced by Mr. Lupton. 
In these days, when the trend of sentiment is 
toward the abolition of spring shooting in nearly 
all of the States in the Union, it is unfortunate 
that those Long Islanders, who are directly bene¬ 
fited by the presence of wildfowl in the bays, 
should seek to accomplish that which vvill ac¬ 
tually reduce their income. On all hands it is 
conceded that spring shooting is a very poor 
policy, yet the Long Islanders persist, with a 
tenacity worthy of a better cause, in the demand 
for special laws. 
The brant clause of the present law is shame¬ 
fully abused and should be abolished, so that 
any man found on the bays with battery and 
gun after Dec. 31 could be properly punished. 
Possession of wildfowl should be limited to the 
open season. 
Another famous angler has crossed the 
divide. Major W. G. Turle died at his home 
in Newton Stacey, England, at a ripe old age. 
He was one of the pioneers in dry-fly fishing, 
and first practiced the art at Winchester, where 
it originated. He was the originator of the 
Turle knot, used so much by fly-fishers in con¬ 
necting eyed flies with leaders or tippits. He 
retired from the British army many years ago, 
after serving through the Indian mutiny in 1857 
and 1858. He was wounded at the siege of 
Delhi, but was even more seriously injured in 
later years by a friend, who shot him by acci¬ 
dent, causing the loss of his right eye. He 
still continued to shoot from his right shoulder, 
however, using a gun whose stock was so 
formed that he could aim with the left eye. 
« 
Edw. a. Brown, of Denver, a grand nephew 
of Zebulon IM. Pike, the famous explorer of 
the early Southwest, is on his way to Washing¬ 
ton to urge Congress to establish the national 
park in the White River Forest Reservation in 
Western Colorado. He hopes that a large sec¬ 
tion of the reservation, preferably high land un¬ 
suitable for agriculture and without known min¬ 
eral resources, may be set aside as a park. In¬ 
cidentally, he proposes that within this park 
should be built a home for indigent soldiers and 
sailors and a recuperating station for invalid 
soldiers. 
The Pennsylvania Railroad Commission has 
sent out circulars to all the railway companies 
operating in that State with a view to ascer¬ 
taining what precautions are being taken to pre¬ 
vent fires on State and other forest lands. These 
questions cover all points concerning forest and 
brush fires that may originate along railways, as 
well as the means employed to prevent or arrest 
them. The Forestry department is assisting in 
the work. Other States may be expected to 
follow New York and Pennsylvania in their 
praiseworthy efforts to prevent disastrous fires. 
A st.vtement has been made to the effect that 
a large tract of land in Colorado is to be made 
into a game preserve. This is coal land owned 
by J. P. Morgan and others. It consists of 
some 2,000 acres in the southern part of the 
State. ■ Coal is being taken from it, but this 
will not interfere with fencing the tract and 
stocking it with deer. 
