Forest and Stream 
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NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1909. 
1 VOL. LXXII.—No. 16. 
1 No. 127 Franklin St., New York 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909. by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Gbobgh 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. 
A NEEDED AMENDMENT. 
.Assembly bill No. 65 was introduced in the 
New York Legislature by Hon. James A. Francis 
to remedy a fatal weakness in the present bird 
protective law. It slightly amends Sections g8 
and 241 of the present law and makes these two 
sections agree. The intention of the amendment 
is to prohibit the sale of the plumage of wild 
birds in New York State no matter whether 
the feathers are taken from a bird killed with¬ 
in the State or elsewhere. Without such an 
amendment, it becomes impossible to prevent 
traffic in the plumage of New York birds, for 
dealers in such plumage can always plead that 
the birds came from without the State. 
It is now so generally recognized that the pro¬ 
tection of birds is essential to the prosperity of 
every section of the country, that all persons 
who have given the subject even cursory exami¬ 
nation, agree that birds must be protected, and 
the only means by which they can efficiently be 
protected is to prevent their sale. 
The game laws forbid the sale of game birds 
and the sale of the plumage of protected birds, 
but the dealers in feathers have found a loop¬ 
hole in the wording of these sections and are 
still carrying on the traffic. 
The farmers’ crops, the fruits of the orchard 
and the forest and shade trees of woodland and 
lawn are all dependent on the vigilance and toil 
of the birds, which do not cease from the be¬ 
ginning of the year to its end. The agricul¬ 
turists see the importance of protecting the 
birds, and the Order of the Patrons of Hus¬ 
bandry of this State, which is over 83,00 strong, 
is earnestly on the side of bird protection. The 
State Legislature should be on the same side. 
In a bill introduced in the New York .Assembly 
by Mr. Barden, it is proposed to permit wildfowl 
shooting on Seneca and Cayuga lakes from Sept. 
16 to Feb. 20, with possession until the end of 
February. The Lupton bill provides for a still 
further extension of the open and possession 
season on Long Island. Both measures deserve 
the condemnation of sportsmen throughout the 
State. Mr. Barden’s bill is up for third reading. 
Mr. Hamilton’s bill, appropriating $12,000 for 
a State game bird propagating farm, has been 
reported by the Ways and Means Committee and 
is in the order of second reading. 
MASSACHUSETTS DEER HUNTING. 
It is odd how the pendulum swings back and 
forth, and how men’s minds change apparently 
without much reason. The Virgilian phrase 
about the changeability of woman is quite as 
applicable to the other sex. 
Take the matter of game protection for ex¬ 
ample. .After much discussion, a community 
apparently becomes convinced of the importance 
of trying to protect certain birds or mammals and 
a law to this end is enacted. Hardly is the printed 
statute bound before some one sets to work 
to overthrow the enactment. Such a situation 
we are witnessing in Connecticut to-day, as to 
spring duck shooting. We have seen many 
similar efforts made in New A^ork, where, how¬ 
ever, public sentiment seems too strong to be 
changed. 
To most people in Connecticut and in Massa¬ 
chusetts, it has seemed worth while that the 
few deer in those States should be protected, 
yet the agricultural papers are full of com¬ 
plaints—some just enough, no doubt, but others 
bearing internal evidence that they have little 
foundation—of the damage done by deer, with 
insistent demands that the law protecting them 
shall be repealed. Now, it is reported that the 
Massachusetts authorities, including the Fish 
and Game Commission, propose that next year 
there shall be an open season on deer. A rea¬ 
son offered for removing protection is that last 
year the total of damage caused by deer and 
paid for by the State was $4,000. The close 
time on deer in Massachusetts expires, we be¬ 
lieve, in 1910. 
It will rest with the Legislature to decide 
whether the close time shall be extended or a 
hunting season opened. If an open season is 
established solely on grounds of economy-—to 
save the State the dollars paid out in damages 
—it will be poor economy; for the accidents, 
injuries and general damage done in the Com¬ 
monwealth as a dire^ct result of an open season, 
will no doubt exceed the sum of $4,000, though 
these damages will be paid not by the State, but 
by individuals. The presence of wild deer in a 
thickly settled farming community is an anom¬ 
aly which might well enough cease at once, but 
the State contains great tracts of land very 
sparsely inhabited, and—as at present handled 
—fit only for deer pastures. If these lands 
could be fenced and used as deer farms ^nd the 
deer bred and sold, the lands would at least 
produce something—as now they do not. 
In a thickly settled country deer hunting 
with the high power rifles of the present day 
is dangerous business and ought not to be per¬ 
mitted, In such a community, if deer are to be 
hunted, the hunting should be done under re¬ 
strictions which so far as is possible shall pro¬ 
vide for the safety of the public at large, and 
any enactment to this end should be very strictly 
enforced. 
CORN AND COTTON STALKS. 
It was only last autumn that the Agricultural 
Department at Washington made the announce¬ 
ment that good paper of several grades had 
been made from cornstalk pulp and that this 
material can be successfully used in paper mak¬ 
ing. Experiments by the Government and by 
manufacturers have been productive of such 
satisfactory results that it is possible this new 
industry will become an established fact as soon 
as machinery and processes shall have been per¬ 
fected. 
Not only corn but cotton stalks are available 
in immense quantities, and last week the first 
steps were taken toward the promotion of the 
new industry in the South. A Georgia company 
with abundant capital has begun the erection of 
a large pulp and paper plant in the center of 
the cotton district in that State, and has an¬ 
nounced its intention to manufacture paper from 
cotton stalks. The assumption is that it will 
be ready to begin operations in the autumn, and 
it is believed that the cotton growers of the 
immediate vicinity will be able to supply the 
demand for stalks. 
So quick are our manufacturers to adopt new 
or improved methods that, if this industry proves 
successful, a few years’ time may see the effect 
of the change. Every person interested in the 
movement to preserve our forests will hail the 
change with satisfaction, while the farmer and 
the cotton grower will be able to dispose of pro¬ 
ducts of the soil which, until now, have not 
been regarded as of much value. Concrete, steel 
and iron are steadily replacing wood in much 
of our structural work, but still the cutting 
away of the forests continues. At the present 
time Cuban mahogany is sold in our markets 
at a lower price than is asked for some native 
woods which had a low market value prior to 
the evacuation of Cuba by Spain a decade ago. 
Meanwhile the pulp mills’ demand has grown 
at an alarming rate, and if this demand for 
wood can be reduced little by little while re¬ 
forestation increases, as it must do if future 
generations are to use wood, in time the fright¬ 
ful blight of the axe and saw may be minimized 
and fair trees may be found where now are 
blackened wastes. When that time comes, as 
come it will eventually, our descendants may 
find the woods even more attractive than they 
are to us now, and the streams of fair size and 
volume, stocked with game fish. 
Fire destroyed a large portion of the young 
trees on the Vanderbilt estate in North Caro¬ 
lina last week. The damage to the Biltmore 
forest was largely in that portion which was 
reforested about ten 3'ears ago, and which has 
served so well as an object lesson in practical 
reforestation that it has been visited by students 
and others in large numbers annually. 
