576 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April io, 1909. 
A Great International Preserve. 
St. Paul, Minn., March 27. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: I assume that you are familiar 
with the terms of the proclamation of Presi¬ 
dent Roosevelt setting aside the Superior Na¬ 
tional Forest, a tract in two sections in the 
northern part of St. Louis, Lake and Cook coun¬ 
ties in this State, comprising approximately a 
million acres of land. 
The more westerly section of this forest lies 
5 n St. Louis county, extending from Township 
'63 N to the Canadian boundary line, a distance 
•of about thirty miles and thirty-six miles in 
'width, with irregular outline, embracing twenty- 
■one townships or fractional townships. This 
section is an absolutely wild and unsettled coun¬ 
try, of a rough and rocky formation, abounding 
in lakes and streams, wholly unsuited to agri¬ 
culture and containing only a small amount of 
merchantable timber, the whole region having 
been devastated by fire years ago, and the 
growth now being comparatively small, not 
large enough in most cases for lumber. There 
are no settlements or even settlers in this area, 
and nothing to attract them. 
The eastern section of the forest is some¬ 
what larger, extending across the northern part 
of Lake county and some distance into Cook 
county, its extreme width from east to west 
being sixty miles and from north to south thirty- 
three miles, embracing about thirty townships. 
The eastern section does not extend on the 
north quite to the Canadian line. 
This forest is to be under the supervision of 
the Forest Service of the United States Gov¬ 
ernment, in charge of a supervisor and a corps 
of forest rangers. The Minnesota Game and 
Fish Commission has been endeavoring for 
some time to secure in some way a big game 
preserve in this region, especially for the pur¬ 
pose of permanently preserving the moose which 
is gradually being crowded north, and now may 
be said to be making its last stand in Minnesota 
along the Canadian border. 
As soon as the Superior National Forest was 
proclaimed by the President, our commission 
•took the matter up with the proper committees 
■of our State Legislature and bills are now pend¬ 
ing which provide that all national forests in 
this State shall be game preserves. We already 
have an act providing that State parks and 
forest reserves are game reserves. Commercial 
'bodies, leading newspapers and citizens generally 
Fave given their unanimous indorsement to this 
proposition, and there is every reason to believe 
■that the legislation will be enacted. 
Another encouraging circumstance in this con¬ 
nection is the recent action of the Province of 
Ontario in the same direction. Acting upon the 
recommendation of the North American Game 
and Fish Protective Association, the Ontario 
authorities have proclaimed a forest and game 
reserve in Western Ontario bordering the State 
of Minnesota, directly opposite and adjoining 
the Superior National Forest. This Ontario re¬ 
serve embraces Hunter’s Island and about 500 
square miles additional, a total of approximately 
a million acres. This great international pre¬ 
serve will be larger in extent than the Yellow¬ 
stone National Park, and it is believed that it 
will solve the problem of the propagation of the 
moose, as it is of sufficient area to permit this 
..animal to breed in considerable numbers un¬ 
molested, the overflow being expected to stock 
the surrounding country. 
The action of the President and of the Cana¬ 
dian Government have taken place within the 
past month, and it is hoped to have the Min¬ 
nesota details completed within a few weeks 
and the preserve an accomplished fact. 
Carlos Avery, Executive Agent. 
Connecticut Legislature. 
Essex, Conn., March 30 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Inclosed you will find clipping from 
the Hartford Courant of Friday, the 26th, that 
tells of the action taken in the Connecticut 
Legislature concerning the bills that refer to 
wildfowl. The Senate reports referred to fol¬ 
low : 
Recommending referring to appropriations 
committee Senator Higgins’ bill for an appro¬ 
priation of $10,000 for increasing the amount of 
water in Coventry Pond. Reference changed. 
Unfavorable on allowing Uncas Power Com¬ 
pany to control fishing above its dam. Rejected. 
Favorable on a bill that wild duck, geese, brant 
and swans shall not be fired at from a boat pro¬ 
pelled otherwise than by hand, or from any float¬ 
ing device used to conceal the hunter, if more 
than fifty feet from the shore or natural growth 
of grass or flags. Calendar. 
Favorable on repealing Section 3,187 of the 
statutes restricting fishing in the Thames River 
with any sort of net with meshes less than one 
and one-quarter inches square. Calendar. 
Unfavorable on bills forbidding the catching 
of perch less than six inches long in Fitchville 
Pond, and in Gardner Lake. Rejected. 
Making trout law the same in Litchfield county 
as in the rest of the State, the open season to 
be April i to July i. Passed under suspension 
in concurrence and sent to engrossing clerk. 
House reports: 
Unfavorable on a bill regarding fishing in 
Knonomoc Lake. Accepted. 
Unfavorable on a bill regarding the sale of 
game. Accepted. 
Unfavorable on four bills regarding a close' 
season for web-footed fowls. Accepted. 
Unfavorable on two bills allowing night shoot¬ 
ing on Niantic Bay. Accepted. 
Unfavorable on bills regarding shad fishing 
on the tributaries of the Connecticut River. Ac¬ 
cepted. 
Unfavorable on the bill prohibiting the use of 
gill nets in tributaries of the Connecticut River. 
Accepted. ' 
Favorable on a bill making a close season for 
woodduck. It makes a close season of ten years. 
Calendar. 
Unfavorable on a bill regulating shad fishing. 
Recommitted on request of Mr. Hall, of Willing- 
ton. 
The bills that would permit spring shooting 
have been reported unfavorably by the fish and 
game committee and these reports have been 
accepted by the House. The bill prohibiting the 
killing of woodduck for a period of ten years 
has been put upon the calendar, but in all prob¬ 
ability this will become a law, as the sentiment 
of sportsmen seems to be strongly in its favor. 
I am sure the majority of sportsmen in this 
State will rejoice that the action thus far taken 
in regard to spring shooting has been of the 
nature .it has. Geo. W. Comstock. 
Game Bird Propagation in 
Massachusetts. 
Concluded from page 536. 
No success in the artificial brooding of game 
birds can be expected without a thorough dis¬ 
infecting of all brooders that have once been 
used. The chief value of the disinfection is 
that it tends to prevent the contracting of 
diseases by the chicks until they have grown 
strong enough to resist them. 
The method now in use at the Sutton hatch¬ 
ery seems to be effective, if carefully done. The 
brooders are first washed and scrubbed thor¬ 
oughly, they are then drenched with a ten per 
cent, solution of formalin, then sealed up while 
wet and fumigated with sulphur candles. The 
bedding is also fumigated. Cleaning and dis¬ 
infecting with formalin alone is not effective. 
Prof. Hodge also washes the inside of the 
brooder with hot fresh-slaked lime. The sand 
for his brooders was taken from the depths of 
a sand bank, while the bedding was dry, clean 
lawn clippings. 
Food. 
No one has yet had sufficient experience to 
know just what is the best food for young quail 
and grouse in captivity. Evidently like young 
chickens they thrive best on a variety of vege¬ 
table and animal food, but just what proportion 
and variety of er.'h is required by them when 
kept in captivity i.- not yet fully determined. 
Insect food of some Kind is believed to be a 
necessity as they wih not thrive on animal meal 
or beef scraps such as are given chickens. 
Dr. Hodge says that most of his young grouse 
were killed in 1908 by feeding them largely far 
the first two days on plant bugs swept with a 
net from the tops of the June grass. When the 
birds all sickened, this feeding was stopped, and 
three birds recovered and lived to grow up. 
The dead birds showed no sign of the ordinary 
diseases. Young quail fed on plant bugs were 
not affected. 
Dr. Hodge believes that fresh “ant eggs” 
(which are merely ants in their pup-a! stage) 
comprise about all the animal food necessary 
He also suggests dried grasshoppers, sterilized 
by steam. 
Mr. Merrill finds “ant eggs,” berries, mixed 
grain, seeds, bread crumbs and cereal prepara¬ 
tions (particularly shredded wheat) and meat 
-soup all useful. Shredded wheat was used in 
the custard fed to young pheasants. Clover and 
lettuce are good as green food. 
Natural Enemies. 
Young birds reared during the earlier part 
of their lives in brooders and coops escape most 
of their natural enemies, but even here they are 
not safe from cats, snakes and rats. Dr. Hodge 
found cats most destructive. They got four 
grouse and six quail by reaching through the 
wire netting. One night a cat disturbed a pair 
of quail with a brood of thirteen young. The 
young were scattered and chilled so that ten 
died. In December a cat reached through the 
wire and broke a quail’s leg. All this occurred 
notwithstanding traps were set for cats and a 
large dog was kept on watch. The only way 
to avoid such mishaps is to surround the breed¬ 
ing grounds with a cat-proof fence. Rats got 
eight of Dr. Hodge’s birds. There was no 
trouble with hawks or owls even after the birds 
