1G 
Forest and Stream 
January, 1915 
THE NEW FOREST AND STREAM. 
UR promise of last week herein becomes a 
reality. This is the first issue of the new 
Forest and Stream —a monthly publica¬ 
tion, with at least twelve objects in view, during 
the coming year and each one beneficial to sports¬ 
men. Since our preliminary announcement, hun¬ 
dreds of letters have come to us commending the 
change from weekly to monthly, and offering 
valuable suggestions toward making Forest ana 
Stream what the “big percentage’’ of sportsmen 
want. The consensus of opinion, among our cor¬ 
respondents, is that every issue should have at 
least one suggestion, to each subscriber, that will 
make the magazine worth the price of his sub¬ 
scription—this we intend doing. The general 
idea will be to avoid fiction, keeping strictly to 
suggestive articles. Our readers have noticed the 
series on the “new game country” that has been 
running in the weekly issues. This country was 
explored by our own representative, and he has 
much more information in store for you. This 
finding of new country seemed imperative to us, 
because of the decrease in big game opportunities 
in United States and Canada’s beaten paths. 
When we have finished with this section we will 
go after new, comparatively near territory, of 
which there is much, requiring time and money 
to find. This is only one of the helpful tasks we 
have undertaken. 
The much neglected salt water angler will be 
taken care of from now on. Salt water angling, 
surf casting and northern tuna fishing is re¬ 
markably interesting and wholesome sport, and 
more should partake of it, as they would did they 
know more of it. The Canoeist needs his inning, 
and we will give it him; we will “put ’em over the 
plate” in such a way as to make every item a hit. 
Trips, long and short, cruises, incorporating 
shooting and fishing possibilities, will stand out 
boldly. Field, fowl, and smaller quadruped hunt¬ 
ing will be handled with a “where and how to” 
flavor. Trap and rifle shooting and how to take 
care of your gun and rifle, will find a generous 
position. In other words, we intend talking to 
men who want to know and want to go. We 
know YOU are one of these—tell your friends 
about us—give them a copy of the paper. 
DEER AND RABBIT MUST GO IN JERSEY? 
LSEWHERE in this issue appears a note 
from one of our New Jersey field corre¬ 
spondents, wherein appears an opinion 
from the State Forestry Commission to the ef¬ 
fect that deer and rabbits must be exterminated 
that forest fires may be avoided in the state- Ap¬ 
pended to our correspondent’s letter is a com¬ 
FOREST AND STREAM 
munication from Ernest Napier, president of the 
Fish and Game Commission. The president finds 
that railroads are principally responsible for the 
past season’s disastrous fires, and there is little 
question but that his conclusions are correct. It 
was proved beyond conjecture that forest fires in 
New York state, as those in other states, were 
started by fire from locomotives until railroads 
were compelled to take every precaution to keep 
sparks within their own highways. A little more 
legislation compelling railroads traversing New 
Jersey to guard against setting fires and a little 
less loose speculation by the forest commission 
will result to the satisfaction of most of the resi¬ 
dents o'f the state that has suffered so heavily, 
this year, from fire and flood. 
THE SHOOTING AND FISHING LICENSE. 
T IS conceded pretty generally among sports¬ 
men, that there should be a shooting and 
fishing license in every state in the Union. 
To our way of thinking there is no doubt about 
it. We advocate a combination license, at one 
dollar a year—plus clerks’ charges—that will en¬ 
able a man or woman to shoot or fish or both, 
for one year for a dollar. It would not be fair 
to compel the man who shoots only, or the man 
who fishes only, to pay a double license, while on 
the other hand, it is unreasonable to tax the 
shooter with a license, part of the money from 
which goes to fish hatcheries and planting, for 
the upkeep of fishermen’s sport. Each should 
pay his way. We never have known a day’s fish¬ 
ing, no matter how small the catch, that was not 
worth a dollar, and we doubt not every one of 
our readers feels the same way. The question of 
a fishing license will come up at the January 
meeting of the legislatures in seventeen states, 
and it is our earnest hope that the combination 
license, at one dollar, will become a law in all of 
these states, before the fishing season opens next 
Spring. A few lines to your representative will 
make next year's laws much more practicable 
than is the case in many states that have passed 
game legislation during the year just past. 
ONLY THE GET TOGETHER BRETHREN 
GET THERE. 
O STATE has a better game record than 
Pennsylvania; in no other state has there 
been a more determined effort to promote 
successful hunting and fishing through the enact¬ 
ment and enforcement of good laws. We regret, 
therefore, after results so happily accomplished 
and promise of better ones to accrue, that our 
Pennsylvania brethren seem for the moment to 
have agreed, like Mr. and Mrs. Betsy, to disagree. 
Forest and Stream has given in rather com¬ 
plete detail both sides of the controversy now 
raging in the Keystone commonwealth. It was, 
and is, a task the necessity of which we deplore, 
but now that each side has had its say, may we 
•be allowed to exercise the thankless prerogative 
of a mutual friend and well-wisher and remind 
the belligerents that no matter what they may 
think personally they must, willy-nilly, stick to¬ 
gether in the cause of real game conservation, if 
they expect to accomplish anything worth while 
and preserve privileges dearly won. The futility 
of “Haring and dam liaring” is never so well 
illustrated as in cases like this. We might also 
paraphrase an oft-quoted proverb and say that 
when just men fall out the devil reaps his dues— 
in brief, the market-hunter, the poacher and the 
game law breaker are rejoicing now over the 
prospect that the future opens for them if Penn¬ 
sylvania sportsmen do not patch up their differ¬ 
ences and work in harmony. Benjamin Franklin, 
a one-time citizen of Pennsylvania, who is not 
altogether forgotten by this generation, wrote a 
number of pertinent observations covering situa¬ 
tions such as the one we are talking about, that 
might be repeated here, did space permit. Our 
advice to the sportsmen of Pennsylvania—and 
this applies to other states with equal force—is 
to get together, pull together and stick together, 
if they desire to preserve the hunting and fishing 
that they now enjoy. 
THE OPEN SEASON ON FOR THIS 
OFFICIAL. 
O NE of the Department heads at Washing¬ 
ton is trying to interest Congress in a 
scheme to erect a “model village” in the 
Glacier National Park. He claims that he can 
thus avoid incongruity in architecture, etc., and 
is of the opinion that the National parks should 
be made self-supporting; that if they are not 
now, the people of the country will sooner ot 
later demand that they shall be. 
Who told him so? Has there been objection of¬ 
fered to keeping inviolate the magnificent Yel- 
lowstone Park, or other National reservations? 
If so, it must have been made in a whisper to the 
eager-eared official in question. No doubt his idea 
of a National park is a Coney Island resort, with 
the usual carousel and popcorn attachments. But 
the people of the United States will not agree to 
the proposition that the greatest and most won¬ 
derful breathing spots in the world shall be de¬ 
graded to make a summer side-show holiday. If 
there are, anywhere on this terrestrial sphere, lo¬ 
calities where “every prospOct pleases and only 
man is vile” these are to be found in the great 
National parks of the United States. Make them 
self-supporting? The man who would try to do 
that in the sordidness of a mercenary spirit would 
cut the statues of our country’s heroes into small 
bits and sell them as souvenirs. 
KEEP AN EYE ON THIS CONVENTION. 
ATURE lovers and conservationists won a 
great victory in New York State twenty 
years ago, when they succeeded in putting 
into the constitution a proviso that the forest and 
wild lands should always be regarded as invio¬ 
late against commercial destruction. That little 
clause has saved the Adirondacks and other sec¬ 
tions from deforestration and has held for the 
people an immense area for their enjoyment and 
recreation. Attempts to root that clause out of 
the constitution have been made on several occa¬ 
sions without success. 
We are moved to write on this subject for the 
reason that New York has voted for a revision 
of the constitution as a whole, and the conven¬ 
tion to take up the work will assemble within the 
next three months. We have not heard of any 
special campaign to eliminate the reservation 
clause, but beyond question somebody will bob up 
representing interests hostile to it. It will pay 
the sportsman, the nature-lover and every citizen 
who appreciates his heritage to keep an eye on 
the convention when it assembles and watch that 
nothing sinister is allowed to slip through which 
will result in the destruction of the Adirondacks 
or other public territory. 
