Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months. $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL lo, 1909. 
I VOL. LXXII.—No. 15. 
I No. 127 Franklin St., New York 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing C». 
Gbokgb Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary. 
Louis Dean Speir. Treasurer. 
127 Franklin 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. 
CONGRATULATIONS. 
On March 31, full of years, full of honors, 
and with the warm affection and cordial best 
wishes of a host of old friends, Robert Rutter, 
of this city, retired from the active management 
of the business he had so long and so success¬ 
fully conducted. 
Mr. Rutter was born in Fredericton, N. B., 
Feb. 6, 1828, and there learned book binding. 
In 1850 he came to New York, and in March, 
1852, became the manager of his present busi¬ 
ness, which had been established in 1848, by 
Samuel Middlebrook, in Fulton street. In i860 
Mr. Rutter purchased the business, of which he 
has been the head for now nearly half a century. 
His retirement leaves it in the hands of Horace 
Rutter, his son, who has long been associated 
with him. 
Mr. Rutter is a sportsman, but above all, a 
fisherman. From his old home to the new one, 
he brought a love of angling, and in the new 
one, which has now become old, he has prac¬ 
ticed the gentle art and enjoyed the sport for 
more than half a century. Among the anglers 
of the last generation and among the younger 
men of to-day, Mr. Rutter has had a multi¬ 
tude of friends, including tl;at gentle spirit, 
Edward R. Wilbur, for so many years the man¬ 
ager of Forest .^nd Stream. All his friends, 
young and old, congratulate Mr. Rutter on his 
successful career. 
FIRE LOSS REMEDIES. 
A VERY difficult problem has been solved by 
the State officials of New York. The Forest, 
Fish and Game Commission and the Public 
Service Commission of the Second District have 
established a set of rules for the regulation of 
Adirondack railways along whose rights of way 
forest fires have originated in past years. 
After a scries of hearings the Public Service 
Commission has ordered certain railways to 
burn oil in their locomotives from April 15 to 
Nov. I each year, during the hours of 8 a. m. to 
8 p. M. inclusive. The order will become effect¬ 
ive on April 15, 1910. Coal-burning locomotives 
may be used at night, but must be approved by 
the Forest, Fish and Game Commission. 
The order applies to those railways which 
operate in the forest preserve in the Adiron¬ 
dack Mountains, and is elastic, for the commis¬ 
sion may, during a wet season, permit coal to 
be burned in certain cases, but locomotives 
burning coal must be passed on by the com¬ 
mission if they are to be used after June i 
next in the forest preserve. 
The testimony collected during the hearings 
is valuable. It shows that while the timber on 
59.000 acres of land was destroyed by fires 
originating along the railways during the 
great drouth of last autumn, 42,000 acres can¬ 
not be accounted for with certainty, 50,000 
acres were devastated by the carelessness of 
campers and hunters, and incendiaries caused 
the loss of 16,000 acres of forest trees. It is 
safe to say that a considerable proportion of 
the “unknown” fires may be credited to in¬ 
cendiaries, and perhaps the balance may be 
credited to carelessness and to the railways. 
As the figures stand in the Chief Fire 
Warden’s report, however, they show the re¬ 
sult of that wanton spirit which is displayed by 
a great many persons who, as soon as they are 
beyond the last evidences of civilization, feel 
that they are bound by no laws and show a 
disregard for all rules that, to say the least, is 
amazing. They, as well as others who have 
caused great loss to the people of the State, 
must be brought to a realization of their duties 
to their fellow men. 
GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 
The bill to establish the Glacier National 
Park passed both houses of Congress, but in 
slightly different form, was not reached in Con¬ 
ference Committee and failed to become law. No 
doubt it will be reintroduced in the next Con¬ 
gress, and will finally be enacted. The grand 
beauty of the region, its importance as a stor¬ 
age reservoir for water and its value as a game 
reserve are generally recognized. 
The recent action of the Canadian authorities 
in setting aside as a game and forest reserve 
a great tract adjoining the recently established 
Superior National Forest encourages the hope 
that when Congress shall establish the Glacier 
National Park, Canada may in like manner set 
aside an adjacent tract in the main range of the 
Rgckies just north of the International bound¬ 
ary. Such action might well double the pro¬ 
tected area and afford to forests and game 
north of the line the safety that they will find 
in northwestern Montana. 
Such a great park owned and cared for by 
two friendly neighbors will furnish a preserve 
comparable in area and interest to the Yellow¬ 
stone National Park, and to the great Banff 
National Park and its adjacent reservations. 
In such a park, wild sheep, goats, deer, elk 
and moose may be preserved forever and in 
great numbers, while, if stocked with buffalo, 
another sturdy herd of these great beasts may 
be firmly established here. 
Its glaciers alone would make this park 
unique, though it is a mistake to state, as has 
been done, that these are the only glaciers in 
the United States. Still, on the slopes of the 
mountains which stand everywhere in this 
region are more than sixty living glaciers which 
supply and keep full a multitude of lakes and 
rivers flowing into the Arctic, the Atlantic and 
the Pacific oceans. 
It is gratifying to see the readiness with 
which Canada appears disposed to co-operate 
with the United States in the work of conserv¬ 
ing the natural things of this continent. Two 
such good neighbors may wisely work together 
for so good an object. 
BARB LESS FISHHOOKS. 
In all of the books on fishing will be found 
treatises on the theory of the fishhook, its func¬ 
tions, its shape and the position of the point with 
reference to its ability to so hook the fish that 
the barb will be embedded arid escape prevented. 
This is the function of the barb—to prevent the 
fish from getting away. As a rule it is effective, 
but is it necessary? For still-fishing it is neces¬ 
sary, but for fly-fishing it may or may not be. 
Much depends on the skill of the angler. 
On another page Chester K. Green, of the 
United States Fisheries Bureau, presents an able 
argument in favor of the barbless hook. He 
writes from experience. When he was a boy 
and the fishing companion of his father, the late 
Seth Green, he was taught the use of the barb¬ 
less hooks which the veteran angler then em¬ 
ployed, and since then has fished often with 
such hooks and knows their merits. His paper 
should be read with care. 
If all of the trout hooked by fishermen were 
to be kept and killed, there would be little if 
any trout fishing in a few years. If all of the 
trout that are returned to the water live, the 
popular form of hook would leave nothing to 
be desired. But injured fish may not—and many 
of them do not—survive the injury from the 
barb and from handling. Therefore, the needle- 
pointed barbless hook deserves consideration by 
those who put back undersized trout, and for 
fishing in streams where trout run small. 
So skillful are a vast number of our trout fly- 
fishers that, in their hands, the barbless hook 
would probably prove as effective in hooking and 
landing trout as any barbed hook now used. 
Occasionally we hear of trout that have been 
taken on barbless hooks, and, too, of those that 
are lost, but little is known by the average angler 
concerning these hooks, as they are not regti- 
larly made for the trade, though they can prob¬ 
ably be had, as they can be easily made by a:ny 
skilled metal worker. 
