24 -i 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Feb. 24, 1912 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
Edward C. Locke, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
S. J. Gibson, Treasurer. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of 
entertainment, instruction and information between Amer¬ 
ican sportsmen. The editors invite communications on 
the subjects to which its pages are devoted. Anonymous 
communications will not be regarded. The editors are 
not responsible for the views of correspondents. 
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THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
MIGRATORY GAME BIRDS. 
Officials of the American Game Protective 
and Propagation Association have just returned 
from^ Washington, where they arranged for a 
hearing in the matter of a national law for the 
protection of migratory game birds. Three bills 
for this are now pending. Conferences were 
held with Senator McLean and Congressmen 
Weeks, Anthony and Lamb. It is announced 
that the hearing will be given on March 6 before 
the House Committee on Agriculture. 
It is believed that nothing short of Federal 
regulation will save the country’s migratory game 
birds, and it is of the greatest importance that 
all those interested in the measure arrange to 
attend the hearing and urge the passage of the 
bills. 
WATER POWERS. 
The committee on forests of the New York 
Board of Trade and Transportation, in a lengthy 
report, submitted at the board meeting last Wed¬ 
nesday, denounced, in the most vigorous terms, 
the water-power bills now before the Legisla¬ 
ture, reference to which was made in these 
columns last week. The committee said: 
The difficulty heretofore has been that the power 
owners have been unable to acquire at their own valua¬ 
tion such private property as they covet, and the con¬ 
stitution has prohibited the taking of State property. 
This scheme would gather in the whole thing and give 
the power owners what they have so long sougltt for 
,\re the people of this State prepared to confer the right 
of eminent domain upon any private person or corpora¬ 
tion, the right to be exercised by one person or a 
power corporation to take from another person or an¬ 
other power corporation the private property of such 
persons or corporations or of the State for the exclusive 
use and benefit of the other private person or corpora¬ 
tion? 
The committee questions the legality of some 
of the provisions proposed, and continues: 
This so-called quasi-public eleemosynary corporation 
which is to be operated without profit to its stockholders 
is in fact a new conception, a new hybrid organization 
to be brought into existence, a sort of centaur among 
corporations, a monster having the head, arms and body 
of a corporation, united to the body and legs of a hold¬ 
ing company; but which is neither a holding company 
nor a corporation, but which would nevertheless do the 
part designed for it, and that is manifestly to serve as 
the medium for gathering in all properties and rights 
under the form of law, creating a vast aggregation of 
interests which will eventually be controlled by one of 
these monsters. This is quite clear, for the same act 
which provides for their creation also provides the means 
by which these centaurs may, so to speak, eat each 
other up—i. e., may acquire each other’s property until 
the last great centaur, having eaten all the others, will 
alone survive to exploit the State and the people. 
Ill recommending that every effort be made to 
defeat these Senate bills, the committee says 
that denunciation in measured terms would be 
wholly inadequate to express its views of them, 
and that it is simply dumfounded that any in¬ 
telligent committee of the Legislature should, 
with the pretense of regarding the public in¬ 
terests, have recommended such measures for 
enactment. 
ARROW FLIGHTS. 
In a note printed in these columns last Sep¬ 
tember, we commented on the excellent flight 
shooting of R. P. Elmer at the thirty-third an¬ 
nual meeting of the National Archery Associa¬ 
tion in Chicago last summer, and several cor¬ 
respondents referred to the subject later on. 
Dr. Elmer, we now learn, was a novice then, 
he having read a number of books on archery 
and practiced it without other instruction, so 
that the veterans with whom he competed at the 
national meet were surprised and pleased at the 
skill he displayed in defeating some of them. 
His best flight shot was 270 yards. 
Dr. E. B. Weston, who has followed the history 
of archery in America very closely, gives in the 
Christian Science Monitor a summary of the 
best flight shots made at any of the meetings of 
the association. L. W. Maxson, he says, holds 
the distance record of the association; 290 yards, 
made in 1891. Two years later C. J. Strong shot 
an arrow 285^2 yards, and Dr. Elmer's score, 
270 yards, stands third. 
In 1904 Miss Mabel Taylor, of Cincinnati, won 
the women’s prize with 219 yards, which is the 
association’s record for her sex. Second, 211 
yards i foot, was made by Miss E. C. Cooke, 
of Washington, in 1891. Third place belongs to 
Mrs. Albert Kern, of Dayton, Ohio, who shot 
an arrow 211 yards in 1899. 
While the winter has been bitter in the United 
States, the month of February in England has 
been even more severe. Frost has locked ponds 
and streams usually open all winter, and skating, 
an unaccustomed pastime, is practiced every¬ 
where. The winter birds have suffered terribly, 
winter residents have been found dead in the 
fields, sea gulls worn out by cold and storm have 
alighted in towns, and a specimen of the little 
auk was found dead in the fields in Northamp¬ 
tonshire. How far the game has suffered from 
the unexpected severity of the winter will not 
be known until spring comes, but in spite of all 
the efforts that have been made to feed the par¬ 
tridges and the pheasants, it is likely that the 
loss has been heavy and that next season’s bags 
will be poor. 
The advocates of reforestation who have 
pointed with pride to the efforts put forth by 
a few railways and other corporations to offset 
the evils of wholesale lumbering by reforesta¬ 
tion, may read with surprise the remarks of 
Senator Argetsinger, made at Rochester recently. 
In deploring the unfavorable light in which 
his State reforestation bill was regarded at Al¬ 
bany, and the probability that the Conservation 
Commission’s reforestation bill would not be 
passed, the Senator said: 
1 have found that many owning timber land are op¬ 
posed to the measure, and also that there is opposi- 
t on on the part of members of both houses. 
The Strength of the lumber and pulp interests 
is very great, and it is their policy to maintain 
high prices to-day and as far into the future as 
they may be able to extend their influence. The 
fewer the trees, the higher will be the price of 
timber and lumber. How long will the people 
submit to this policy of ruin? 
Hi 
Mr. Whish’s communication, printed in an¬ 
other column, should be carefully considered. 
The temperature of the water is a very important 
element in the regulation of the fishing. Taking 
spawning fish is not advisable. And yet, with 
the opening day as at present, fishing is allowed 
while the bass are still spawning in certain 
waters. The Delaware River is a notable ex¬ 
ample. Every angler who is familiar with the 
conditions there knows that many bass are still 
on the beds on June 16. While the water in 
that river is cold, it is warmer than some of 
the bass waters further north in the State. It 
is of interest in this connection to add that 
vigorous efforts are being exerted in Trenton to 
advance the opening date for bass fishing in 
New Jersey from May 20 to June 15. 
United States Consul Jones, stationed at 
Winnipeg, Manitoba, says that the recent stam¬ 
pede of prospectors to Minitonas, 257 miles 
northwest of Winnipeg, was caused by the find¬ 
ing of placer gold in the crops of tame turkeys. 
The land in the new district is practically all 
taken up, but the Government retains the right 
to dispose of all minerals it contains, and re¬ 
quires prospective miners to give a bond in the 
sum of $600, for owners of land, although they 
cannot prevent mining operations on it, must be 
reimbursed for damages. 
Henry Wisner, of Oregon City, Ore., who 
has been selected as Director of Eisheries of 
Uruguay, has signed a five-years’ contract with 
the Uruguayan Government. Two American 
foremen are to accompany him, and the vessels 
to be used in connection with his work have 
been purchased in the United States. 
A PRIVATE firm has asked the Government of 
Argentina to admit free of duty certain ma¬ 
chinery which it is proposed to utilize in con¬ 
verting grasshoppers, which are very numerous 
there, into fertilizer. 
