480 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Farmers and Field Sports 
“Happy the man whose only care 
A few paternal acres bound, 
Content to breathe his native air 
On his own ground.” 
And happier still is such a one who has a love 
for the rod and gun, and with them finds now 
and then a day’s freedom from all cares by the 
side of the stream that borders his own acres 
and in the woods that crest his knolls or shade 
his swamp. 
As a rule, none of our people take so few days 
of recreation as the farmer. Excepting Sun¬ 
days, two or three days at the county fair, and 
perhaps as many more spent in the crowd and 
discomfort of a cheap railroad excursion, are all 
that are given by the ordinary farmer to any¬ 
thing but the affairs of the farm. It is true that 
his out-door like makes it less necessary for him 
than for the man whose office or shop work 
keeps him mostly in-doors to devote a month or 
a fortnight of each year to entire rest from labor. 
Indeed, he can hardly do this except in winter, 
when his own fireside is oftener the pleasantest 
place for rest. But he would be the better for 
more days of healthful pleasure and many such 
he might have if he would so use those odd ones 
which fall within his year, when crops are sown 
and planted or harvested, and he need not stay 
at home. A day in the woods or by the stream 
is better for body and mind than one spent in 
idle gossip at the village store, and nine times 
out of ten better for the pocket, though one 
comes home without fin or feather to show for 
his day’s outing. One who keeps his eyes and 
ears on duty while abroad in the field can hardly 
fail to see and hear something new, or, at least, 
more interesting and profitable than ordinary 
gossip, and the wear and tear of tackle and a 
few charges of ammunition wasted will cost less 
than the expense of a day’s loafing. 
But barring the dearth of the objects of his 
pursuit, the farmer who goes a-fishing and 
a-hunting should not be unsuccessful if he has 
fair skill with the rod and gun. For he who 
knows most of the habits of fish and game suc¬ 
ceeds best in their capture, and no man, except 
the naturalist and the professional fisherman and 
hunter, has a better chance to gain this knowl¬ 
edge than the farmer, whose life brings him into 
everyday companionship with nature. His fields 
and woods are the homes and haunts of the birds 
and beasts of venery, from the beginning of the 
year to its end, and in his streams many of the 
fishes pass their lives. By his woodside the quail 
builds her nest, and when the foam of blossom 
has dried away on the buckwheat field she leads 
her young there to feed on the brown kernel 
stranded on the coral stems. If he chance to 
follow his wood road in early June, the ruffed 
grouse limps and flutters along it before him 
while her callow chicks vanish as if by a con¬ 
juror’s trick from beneath his very footfall. A 
month later, grown to the size of robins, they 
will scatter on the wing from his path with a 
vigor that foretells the bold whir and the swift¬ 
ness of their flight in their grown-up days, when 
they will stir the steadiest nerve, whether hunted 
from an October-painted thicket or from the blue 
shadows of untracked snow. No one is likelier 
to see and hear the strange wooing of the now, 
alas, only occasional,-woodcock in the soft spring 
evenings, and to the farmer’s ear first comes that 
assurance of spring—the migration of the birds 
The fox burrows and breeds in the farmer’s 
woods. The raccoon’s den is there in ledge or 
hollow tree. The hare makes her form in the 
shadow of his evergreens, where she dons her 
dress of tawny or white to match the brown 
floor of the woods or its soft covering of snow. 
The bass comes to his river in May to spawn, 
the pike-perch for food, and the perch lives there, 
as perhaps in his brook does the trout. 
All these are his tenants, his real summer and 
winter boarders, and if he knows not something 
of their lives, and when and where to find them 
at home or in their favorite resorts, he is a care¬ 
less landlord. 
His life will be the pleasanter for the interest 
he takes in theirs, and the skill he acquires in 
bringing them to bag and creel. 
Another Great Game Protection 
Victory 
HE greatest game protection victory of the 
year has been won. Illinois has enacted 
legislation prohibiting absolutely the sale 
of game, with the exception of rabbits, which 
may be disposed of under proper restrictions and 
during limited seasons. It is impossible to esti¬ 
mate even approximately how many million wild 
ducks and other feathered game have been sold 
in the Chicago city markets alone during the last 
thirty years. The whole country contributed to 
the slaughter necessary to provide for this con¬ 
sumption and in the same proportion the coun¬ 
try was denuded of game that properly belonged 
to the sections from which it had been shipped. 
The state of Illinois itself, the states of Mis¬ 
souri, Arkansas and others more remote, suffered 
to fill the insatiate maw of the great central 
metropolis. Species after species literally were 
almost wiped off the face of the earth to satisfy 
this never-ending appetite. 
The same situation prevailed in New York un¬ 
til that state stopped the sale of game. The 
same situation will prevail in any community un¬ 
der similar conditions. Happily, intelligence is 
forcing greed and short-sightedness to the rear 
and only a few commercial centers are now left 
where it is possible to sell the common property 
of the people, taken wrongfully from them, to 
favored individuals. If the game belongs to the 
state, it belongs to him who takes it for his own 
use—that is, if the state sanctions that privilege— 
but by no possible extension of human equity 
ought it to be taken from the people and made 
the basis of outside commercial bargaining. 
It is now more than twenty years since Forest 
and Stream first announced its famous platform, 
“The sale of game should be stopped,” and while 
this declaration was for a long time regarded as 
so radical as to be classed as visionary rather 
than practicable, Forest and Stream’s fight, 
thanks to the intelligent co-operation of the 
real sportsmen of America, has been won. There 
are still two or three spots in the country that 
require looking after, but we hope in clue time 
that the United States from ocean to ocean will 
be one great closed game market. 
All honor to the men who have done so much 
in bringing about this great reform, and honor 
particularly to the men who united to put the 
new legislation on the statute books of Illinois. 
Theirs is a victory worth while. 
Will You Do Your Part? 
HE prophecy made by this paper two or 
three months ago that friends of forest 
conservation might well view with fore¬ 
boding the efforts which commercial interests 
would put forth to break down the timber con¬ 
servation laws of New York has proven to be 
true in detail. Disguised in almost every imag¬ 
inable form amendments have been submitted to 
the Constitutional Convention now in session to 
take from the people much of the Adirondack 
forest that remains. Fortunately, these amend¬ 
ments have not yet been adopted in convention, 
but there is grave danger that one or more of 
them may slip through, and so artfully have some 
of them been drawn that they appear innocent on 
the face. 
In every single proposal, either to remove dead 
or down timber, or to open the Adirondacks to 
travel, there is an Ethiopian of sinister visage in 
the Adirondack wood-pile. We again urge on 
every reader of Forest and Stream and very 
particularly on every organized body or associa¬ 
tion having to do with outdoor life, that unless 
instant action is taken, and strong pressure 
brought to bear on the Constitutional Convention, 
the Adirondacks will be thrown open to exploita¬ 
tion and destruction. Columns might be written 
in substantiation of these assertions, but the brev¬ 
ity of fact ought to be sufficient. We repeat 
again that if the people of the state of New York 
do not want to see the Adirondacks destroyed, a 
mighty effort must be made to save the greatest 
playground left in the East. 
Will you do your part? 
Vermont Lines Up for a Fishing 
License 
ERMONT has joined the company of 
those states that require a fishing license 
from both residents and non-residents 
More power to Vermont! She is a live little 
state in all matters pertaining to fish and game, 
and is quick to perceive the signs of the times. 
As stated on another page, there are already five 
other states whose statute books contain a sim¬ 
ilar provision, while another six issue a license 
to non-residents. Unless Forest and Stream is 
vastly mistaken, the next few years will see a 
large addition to the list. 
The fishing license is certainly as logical as 
the hunting license, and none will deny that the 
hunting license has come to stay. It is in fact 
now practically universal, there being only eight 
states which do not require residents to take out 
licenses to hunt. Yet the fishermen would re¬ 
ceive far more for their moderate fee than the 
hunters can ever expect. Stocking covers with 
game is impractical on the same scale that is 
done with fish. 
