to close out every single egret feather, because 
of the New York law prohibiting their sale or 
possession, then it was that the shop girls and 
chambermaids were able to purchase for a song 
what they had been envying my lady of Fifth 
avenue so many years, until now the well dressed 
woman or the fashion dealer would scorn the 
one-time $30 to $50 egret plumes because Mary, 
the chambermaid, may be seen on a Sunday 
afternoon flaunting her enormous egret plumes, 
which she no doubt bought for a song, and my 
lady who rides in her liveried Victoria much 
prefers a feather plucked from the crowing 
chanticleer of the farmer’s back yard. 
Fashion has a strong hold on us all. Having- 
watched the waving aigrettes on the cheap hats 
of New York maids all summer, on reaching 
Florida the first hat observed was at a fashion¬ 
able hotel and worn by a well-gowned woman, 
but it looked passe; enough aigrettes were heaped 
on it to represent the lives of half a dozen 
beautiful birds, bought, no doubt, at a marked- 
down sale. Fashion follows a decree very 
quickl}^, and before spring the death warrant of 
the beautiful Florida heron will be stayed, for 
the fashionable woman will not wear bargain 
counter goods, and as each woman follows the 
other blindly, like sheep jumping one after the 
other into the field where the wolves are, the 
day of the aigrette is over, but this will apply 
only to the silken plume of the heron. Wings 
and birds on hats will continue until fashion puts 
her ban on them; that fashion must be declared 
by woman strong in financial and social circles. 
Florida with her sunny winter climate invites 
the millions of migrating birds, and it is the 
strongest duty of our State and the Audubon 
Societies to protect these little plumage visitors. 
Birds of economic and agricultural value are 
each year getting better known, and this through 
our Audubon and Government experts. When 
we reflect that the annual loss through insect and 
rodent ravages is now estimated to be $800,000,- 
000 in the United States alone, and this loss is 
because of the extinctioii of bird life, is it not 
time that the women of America should step 
in and assist the authorities in stopping one of 
the most serious forms of agricultural waste and 
also one of the worst barbarities. 
At present a strong movement is uppermost 
to preserve those effectual little farm hands, 
robin redbreast and the turtle doves. They ask 
no wages and do much toward saving the South¬ 
ern crops. Especially is their value untold to 
the cotton belt. These wild birds, flying South 
each fall to escape the cold, have been killed by 
countless thousands by negroes and other hunt¬ 
ers. The wild dove, which lives largely upon 
seeds, destroys more weeds than the quickest 
human paid worker the farmer can employ, and 
if the wholesale slaughter is not stopped, this 
bird, like the wild pigeon, will become extinct 
and the loss to the South will be beyond com¬ 
putation. Florida with her statute books rich in 
decrees still permits the senseless slaughter of 
these valuable birds. When will a Florida cam¬ 
paign be inaugurated that will enforce laws, and 
not only protect our own bird life, but feel it 
a bounden duty to give protection to the visitors 
from Northern States? 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
FOREST AND STREAM April 27, 1912 
The Conservaiion Law. 
Albany, N. Y., April 20. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: An important conservation measure be¬ 
came a law when Governor Dix signed the 
Roosevelt bill to codify the laws relating to 
lands and forests, entitled, “An Act to Amend 
the Conservation Law Generally and in Relation 
to Lands and Forests.” The bill was prepared 
by the Conservation Commission. 
The act is a codification and consolidation of 
all existing laws relating to the lands, forests 
and public parks now within jurisdiction of the 
Conservation Commission. 
The old laws had been repeatedly amended 
until they had reached a condition requiring a 
complete revision in the interests of simplifica¬ 
tion and effectiveness. The more progressive 
changes noted are: 
Section 89, providing for taxation relief when 
waste land is reforested by private owners. Sec¬ 
tion 88, giving the Conservation Commission 
power to examine any private forest or wood¬ 
land for the purpose of inspection, looking to 
the practice of the proper and most profitable 
methods of forestry, “to the end that the water 
supply of the State may be conserved, the forests 
protected, and the public interests safeguarded.” 
Sections 102 and 103, providing for a statewide 
inspection of railroad locomotives and fire patrol 
in forest sections. Section 105, permitting in¬ 
spectors to reject from service engines without 
adequate fire protective devices. Section 106, 
providing that all portable or stationary engines 
used in forest sections shall be provided with 
suitable spark arresting devices. The fire pro¬ 
tection precautionary measures are made to ap¬ 
ply to railroads in the State which are not com¬ 
mon carriers, and are intended to enforce fire 
protective rules in connection with the operation 
of logging railroads. 
Among other noteworthy features are these; 
Permitting the setting of fires any time of the 
year for the clearing of lands for the purpose 
of disposing of useless combustible material (the 
cause of 30 per cent, of our forest fires), and 
for agricultural purposes, provided a permit has 
first been obtained from the fire patrolman. The 
old law attempted to legislate weather by en¬ 
deavoring to assign the wet season to fixed 
calendar periods. 
The creation of the position of a forest patholo¬ 
gist is a very important innovation in the State’s 
forestry law. The need of a specialist on tree 
diseases has been brought home to our people 
by the destructive raids on the chestnut forests 
of neighboring States. 
The law empowers the commission to operate 
nurseries, grow trees, reforest State lands, sell 
trees to private landowners at actual cost, give 
trees to State institutions, purchase land for 
forest preserve purposes subject to the approval 
of the Governor, and for the protection of the 
important watersheds in the State forest pre¬ 
serves. 
Among the additional duties imposed upon the 
commission are: The care, control and supervis¬ 
ion of the State forest preserves; to administer 
all laws relating to forest tree culture and re¬ 
forestation ; publish pamphlets of instruction 
relative to the care, use, protection and manage¬ 
ment of forests and woodlands; issue licenses 
to guides and other persons engaged in business 
in the public parks of the State on such terms 
and conditions as it may impose; cause to be 
made investigation as to the methods of refores¬ 
tation, prevention of forest fires, growth .studies, 
yield tables; make rules for the prevention of 
forest fires. The new law authorizes the com¬ 
mission “to accept in the name of the people of 
the State by gift or devise the fee or other 
estate therein of land for forest preserve or 
forestry purposes.” 
Under this act the commission may go into-the 
midst of a large tract of land and acquire what 
is known as the “protective mountain top areas,” 
an important prerequisite to the preservation 
of important watersheds without appropriating 
the whole or any part of the tract, except the 
“protective area.” 
The mandatory provisions of the top-lopp’ng 
law regulating lumbering operations have been 
retained in the present law, but its application 
has been restricted to the so-called “fire towns.” 
The Conservation Commission looks upon the 
State forest preserves as the great playground 
and health resort of the people, for the use of 
all and abuse by none. The policy is to enlarge 
these recreation areas and make them more ac¬ 
cessible for the enjoyment of all the people. 
The effects of the forest upon the habitabdity 
of the State, upon agriculture, upon stream flow, 
upon water supplies, for municipalities are well 
understood, and the popular demand is for an 
extension of the forest areas to secure an en¬ 
largement of these beneficent influences. The 
value of the forests as the source of wood pro¬ 
ducts is also well appreciated, adding to the 
popidar sentiment in favor of reforestation and 
forest protection. But perhaps most important 
of all is the function of our woodland areas as 
a place for the recreation of a hard-working, 
brain-weary people. The aim is to give more 
fishing and hunting, more fish and game, and the 
foundation of that high conservation purpose is 
the forest. Conservation Commission. 
Ducks and Decency. 
Syracuse, N. Y., April 12.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Inclosed find clipping of the arrest of 
prominent members of the Anglers’ Association 
and Hunters’ Club of Onondaga. Also an edi¬ 
torial in connection with same, which appeared 
in the Syracuse Herald of April 7. 
The editorial, in part, follows: 
Each outdoor man wlio rode last Sunday on one of 
the trains on the Auburn branch of the New York 
Central went home to oil his idle shotgun wistfully, tell¬ 
ing his wife the while about a fellow he'd seen in the 
smoker with a bunch of two dozen fat canvasbacks 
lying on the seat beside him. When she asked why he 
himself didn’t take a day off and go gunning — do him 
good, been working too hard, all run down after the 
grippe, etc., etc., he explained manfully that a wise and 
good law of this State forbids spring duck shooting, and 
that the fellow on the train had been violating that law, 
some hundreds of dollars’ worth, if only an honest 
constable had caught him. 
