Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1907, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1907. 
, VOL. LXVIII—No. 5. 
( No. 346 Broadway, New York 
THE FARMER THREATENED. 
The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre¬ 
ation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
objects. Announcement in first number of 
. Forest and Stream, Aug. 14,1873. 
PENNSYLVANIA PUBLIC WATERS. 
A decision of importance, involving the fish¬ 
ing in the public waters of Pennsylvania, has 
just been rendered by a county judge in that 
State. The laws of 1901 declare that “public 
fishing shall exist in all waters within land 
owned by the commonwealth; all waters and 
parts' of waters that have been or may be de¬ 
clared navigable by acts of assembly, or public 
by common law; and such other waters made 
public by its owners, by grant or usage.’’ It is 
further declared that all waters of the common¬ 
wealth, except small springs, stocked at the 
public expense, are open to public fishing. 
Judge Purdy, of the Wayne county court, in 
a recent decision, held that a number of acts of 
the Legislature, including those parts of the act 
of May 29, 1901, which we have quoted, are in¬ 
operative. An appeal from Judge Purdy s de¬ 
cision has been taken to the Superior Court of 
Pennsylvania, and its findings will be awaited 
with interest, for if this decision is allowed to 
stand the free fishing in that State will be re¬ 
duced to a very few rivers. 
MR. FULLERTON’S WORK. 
Minnesota has lost an able officer through the 
resignation of Samuel F. Fullerton, for a num¬ 
ber of years the executive agent of the State 
Game and Fish Commission. Mr. Fullerton’s 
work became so widely known and appreciated 
that he was regarded as a model game and fish 
warden; but his most ardent admirers little knew 
the difficulties that constantly beset his path. His 
official duties, however difficult to perform, were 
pleasant by way of comparison with the petty 
abuse heaped on him by the enemies he made 
through the performance of those duties. Poli¬ 
ticians, wealthy corporations and individuals, men 
with fancied “pulls”—all were landed in “Sam” 
Fullerton’s dragnet. They did not like rough 
handling when they broke the game and fish 
laws, and all were ready and eager to strew his 
path with thorns. 
To Mr. Fullerton is due no small measure of 
credit for the absence to-day of game displays 
in the markets of the country during the closed 
season. He was one of the pioneers irt holding 
up illegal interstate traffic in game and fish, in 
searching shipments and in placing responsibility. 
Carlos Avery, who has been appointed to suc¬ 
ceed Mr. Fullerton, takes into the office with him 
the best wishes of sportsmen. His is an impor¬ 
tant position—one of the most important of its 
kind in the Northwest. More power to him. 
Great indignation is expressed by those in¬ 
terested in game and bird protection at the action 
of the House Committee on Agriculture in strik¬ 
ing from the Agricultural Appropriation Bill the 
provision for the maintenance of the Biological 
Survey. A like feeling of indignation will be felt 
by the farmers of the country, especially those 
of the West and Southwest, as they come to re¬ 
alize what this action would mean to them, if 
it should be carried out. 
It is reported that members of the Agricultural 
Committee have stated that its action was taken 
because no practical commercial agricultural ad¬ 
vantage could be shown to come from any of 
the work of the Bureau. This statement is 
absolutely the reverse of true, and means merely 
that the Congressmen making it ‘had not taken 
the trouble to investigate the work of the Bureau, 
and to learn what that work means. The aboli¬ 
tion of the Biological Survey or its dismember¬ 
ment would be the most serious blow that could 
be given to agriculture in the western United 
States. 
The Bureau of Biological Survey occupies itself 
with three principal subjects : the geographic distri¬ 
bution of animals and plants, the economic rela¬ 
tions of birds and mammals, and the carrying 
into effect the provisions of the Federal laws re¬ 
lating to game in Alaska, to the protection of 
game and small birds, and to the importation of 
foreign birds and. mammals. 
The value of this work to the country’s wel¬ 
fare can hardly be overestimated, for its first two 
departments have a most important bearing on 
the interests of the farmers all over the land. A 
knowledge of the distribution of the different 
species of birds, mammals and plants, especially 
in new countries where farming experience has 
not been long and, above all, over the newly 
settled western country, tells unfailingly just 
where certain crops can be successfully raised. 
If, for example, we know that on a mountain 
side in southern California a particular crop can 
be raised, and know also that on some mountain 
side in Nevada or Utah the same birds, and 
mammals and plants are found, as in the Cali¬ 
fornia spot, we are absolutely certain that the 
crop of the California mountain side will do 
well also on the mountain side of the other 
locality. In other words, the results of the in¬ 
vestigations of this subject furnish to the farmer 
information that he could himself acquire only 
by long and hard years of costly experimenting. 
Economic ornithology and mammalogy are 
comparatively new studies, but the Bureau of 
Biological Survey, by its inquiries into the food 
habits of mammals and birds, has learned much 
about what species are injurious to agriculture 
and what ones are beneficial. It has learned, and 
is explaining to the people that the birds and 
mammals which destroy noxious animals, insects 
and.seeds should be protected and encouraged, so 
that the farmer may have the assistance of these 
helpful species. It is constantly inquiring into 
the uses of animals, investigating their habits 
and devising means for the encouragement of the 
useful and the destruction of the harmful. Only 
last winter and spring, one of the chief assistants 
of the Survey spent months afield in the West, 
in order to discover methods for keeping down 
the wolves which devour the live stock of the 
ranchman. The report of his work and his dis¬ 
coveries, which has just been published, will save 
annually many hundreds of thousands of dollars 
to the cattlemen and to the small farmers of the 
West. 
All through the West destructive rodents, such 
as gophers, ground squirrels, prairie dogs and 
rabbits, prey upon the farmer’s crops, causing in 
the aggregate an annual loss of several million 
dollars. The Biological Survey studies the habits 
of these pests, and recommends • methods by 
which they may be kept under; and the adoption 
of these methods saves to our Western ranch¬ 
men and fruit growers hundreds of thousands 
of dollars every year. 
The preservation of game and the protection 
of birds are closely allied to the other branches 
of the work. The Survey is the agent for the 
carrying out' of the provisions of the Lacey law, 
and has proved a most efficient agent. Its in¬ 
spectors have greatly reduced the illegal traffic 
in game and have brought many actions against 
those who have shipped game in violation of the 
interstate commerce provisions of the law. Mar- 
ketmen who formerly ignored the State game 
laws manifest a great respect for the Federal 
law as enforced by the Biological Survey. 
Another of the duties of this branch of the 
Survey is the keeping out of foreign species of 
animals which might prove even more destruc¬ 
tive than the English sparrow and the house rats 
and mice. A great danger threatening the south¬ 
ern part of the United States from California to 
the Carolinas is the ever present menace of the 
introduction of the mongoose, an animal thus far 
kept out by the constant vigilance of the Bio¬ 
logical Survey, whose inspectors examine all in¬ 
coming vessels carrying live animals at the var¬ 
ious ports of entry from Boston to San Fran¬ 
cisco. 
There are many, people whose experience is 
so limited and their horizon, so narrow that they 
sneer at game protection and see in it nothing 
that is practical; but everyone acknowledges that 
the wellbeing of the country depends on the well¬ 
being of its farmers. To. abolish the work of the 
Biological Survey would be to deal a blow to 
our agricultural interests from which they might 
not recover for many years. We are convinced 
that such an injury to the country will not be 
done. The mere suggestion that it. might be 
done gives unnecessary alarm to a v?ry large 
number of people. 
