Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1908. 
VOL. LXXI.—No.*8. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1908, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary. 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
arill be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
ftn outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
DOMESTICATING DEER. 
As this country fills up and wild game becomes 
more and more scarce, it cannot be doubted that 
property owners will more and more come to 
devote a certain amount of their land to propa¬ 
gating under inclosure animals, foreign or in¬ 
digenous, that once were wild. Sporadic at¬ 
tempts in this way are already being made. 
Wealthy men with large estates have inclosed 
considerable tracts, stocked them with certain 
native animals and left nature to do the rest. 
There have been outbreaks of lunacy in this di¬ 
rection, such as the Belgian hare craze of half 
a dozen years ago—where millions were to be 
made in each man’s back yard—but on the other 
hand many people of distinctly hard common 
sense are working at the experiment of domesti¬ 
cating wild animals for their fur, their flesh or 
for some other use. 
In England, where land is held in large bodies 
and very large estates are common, and where 
there is practically no wild land, this semi¬ 
domestication of wild game—as we have many 
times pointed out—has been going on for hun¬ 
dreds of years. 
The wealthy land owner, be he king, duke, 
baron or simple commoner, does not hesitate to 
send to the market the surplus game killed on 
his place. This is a matter of course with him. 
He breeds his deer, his rabbits, his pheasants 
and his partridges, just as the American farmer 
breeds his sheep, his hogs, his hens and his 
ducks, and markets them in the same way. 
While in many respects the American and the 
Englishman differ widely in their ideas of sport 
and of what may properly be done by sportsmen, 
it is nevertheless true that the people of the two 
countries are constantly growing more and more 
alike. Americans go to Britain and live there, 
hiring shootings and so learning much about 
British methods of sport. Britons come to 
America, travel about, hunt in the West, absorb 
many new ideas and are broadened thereby. 
The day of the game refuge, game preserve 
and the private game park is coming for this 
country, just as it came long ago for England, 
and when it comes there will be a great search 
for information as to how to manage the private 
park on the most economical lines. When that 
inquiry is made, Mr. Hickmott’s article, which we 
publish in another column, will be read with 
great interest, because it deals with deer in con¬ 
finement, and the deer—because they are the ani¬ 
mals most easily obtained—are what the Ameri¬ 
can park owner will first experiment with. The 
red deer of Britain is a close relative of our 
wapiti, but only about one-half as large—as 
big, say, as a good-sized mule deer. The fallow 
deer, a species of southern Europe, is still 
smaller; while the Japanese deer is smaller still 
-—larger than an antelope, but smaller than an 
Eastern Virginia deer. 
It has been demonstrated that elk and white¬ 
tailed deer will increase and do well in almost 
any part of the country, provided only their 
range is sufficiently extensive. A diversified 
pasture of hill and valley and woodland and 
swamp, such as may be found in many places .11 
our New England or Middle States, will un¬ 
doubtedly support a considerable herd of these 
animals, provided they be sufficiently supplied 
with artificial food. 
THE CHICAGO TOURNAMENT. 
The National Association of Scientific Angling 
Clubs, in its executive committee and delegate 
meetings at Chicago, has passed upon several 
questions of importance to its members and to 
anglers generally, and enters upon its third year 
as a power for good. 
Originally the association was organized to 
regulate tournament fly- and bait-casting, and to 
bring together annually all clubs interested in 
such contests; but by degrees it has extended the 
scope of its work, and it is now engaged in an 
earnest endeavor to better the conditions affect¬ 
ing both the' anglers and the game fishes they 
seek. This, it is hoped, may be brought about 
by its two committees—one working toward bet¬ 
ter standards of sportsmanship, the other en¬ 
deavoring to create a lively popular sentiment 
against the pollution of game fish waters and in 
favor of better laws. 
The association has pledged its support to 
those who wish to discourage unsportsmanlike 
angling methods and devices. It will woric 
against ‘'limit catches” of game fish; night fish¬ 
ing; manv-hook lures. In its tournaments pro¬ 
fessionalism and commercialism will be elimi¬ 
nated. Merchandise prizes are to be done away 
with, and in their places there will be inexpen¬ 
sive tokens that will be lasting. 
The competitions which are a part of these 
annual gatherings- are in fact games; but they 
have developed fishing rods, reels and tackle, not 
into clumsy mechanical devices, but into the 
finest and most perfect equipments the anglers 
of the world have ever seen. The interest of the 
majority is centered in delicate and accurate 
casting, and the practice obtained cannot but be 
of real use to the angler for game fishes. 
This is true of both fly- and bait-casting for 
accuracy, in which the rods now used are mar¬ 
velously light and delicate. Only in the events 
for distance casting is power and weight notice¬ 
able, but in these the rods and lines of to-day 
are a great improvement over those of several 
years ago, and there are few implements indeed 
which are not in every way adapted to angling 
for some variety of our game fishes. The 
salmon rods have been reduced to a length of 
fifteen feet and a weight of about twenty-seven 
ounces, against the eighteen-foot three-pound 
rods of our British friends. The other fly-rods 
are respectively adapted to grilse, bass and trout 
fishing, and the bait-casting rods average under 
an ounce per foot of length, and can no longer 
be called casting sticks. 
In the years that we have watched tournament 
casting grow, we have noted many changes, but 
in the summing up it must be said that the 
pastime has been proved to be of immense prac¬ 
tical value to the angler, and to-day the trend 
is unquestionably toward finer tackle, while less 
attention is given to strength and more than 
ever before to skill. 
Abroad there are men who make a business of 
teaching anglers how to fish skillfully and 
properly. Here with us there is none. Begin¬ 
ners are coached by their friends, who take great 
pride in teaching wood and water craft for the 
love of the pastime, and in the angling clubs 
there are many men who will gladly impart all of 
the knowledge they have gained to beginners. 
They feel well repaid when their pupils become 
skillful anglers. 
From the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic 
coast the country, parched by the long drouth, 
was soaked by the rain that fell during the past 
week, and everywhere the fields, the woods and 
the streams show the temporary benefit resulting. 
The Delaware, the Susquehanna, the Allegheny, 
the Monongahela, the Ohio, and all of the. 
streams that flow through Northern Ohio, In¬ 
diana and Illinois, while still low, are roiled from 
the rains, which were heavy, and it is to be as¬ 
sumed that fish and animal life has reaped the 
benefit. In Illinois especially the electrical 
storms of Tuesday and Saturday were very 
heavy, rain falling in torrents, to quickly disap¬ 
pear in the thirsty soil and raise the streams. 
At such times the foliage shows the effect veiy 
quickly, and flowers, plants and trees, so beauti¬ 
ful in August, gladden the heart of the lover of 
natural objects. 
It seems that the efforts of the Argentina agri¬ 
cultural department to introduce North Ameri¬ 
can trout into the cold streams of the hilly re¬ 
gions in that country are likely to be successful. 
A report from Buenos Ayres contains the state¬ 
ment that trout hatched last autumn had in July 
attained an average weight of four ounces, and 
that small trout have frequently been seen in the 
mountain streams. 
