Oct. 3, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Forest Fires in Pennsylvania. 
Clearfield, Pa., Sept. 29.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: For over two months no rain of any 
consequence has fallen in the mountain region 
of central Pennsylvania. As a result most of 
our springs and streams have dried up and the 
fiercest and most destructive forest fires ever 
known in the history of this section for over a 
month have devastated our whole mountain re¬ 
gion. For many years we have had but few 
forest fires. As a result the dead leaves have 
accumulated and the old choppings and slash¬ 
ings have dried up ready for the torch. 
For several years the Forestry Commission 
has been purchasing forest lands, many thousands 
of acres along the Alleghenies and their foot¬ 
hills, and protected them so far as possible from 
fire. Many timber tracts purchased eight and 
ten years ago before the vendors knew their 
value are worth many times the price paid for 
them. But recently too much of the so-called 
forest land purchased by the State was first 
skinned by the owners and lumbermen. The 
last log, tie, mine prop and stick of paper wood 
was taken off and then at a big price the land 
was loaded on to the State. Into these old chop¬ 
pings and slashings fires have been started care¬ 
lessly, and in many cases maliciously, and be¬ 
cause of the scarcity of water, the high winds 
and the extremely hot weather, these fires have 
swept over many thousands of acres of our 
best timber lands and game covers and to-day 
they are an “abomination of desolation.” 
This should not be. Pennsylvania spends 
money enough annually on her forestry commis¬ 
sion to afford better protection to her vast in¬ 
terests than has been furnished in central Penn¬ 
sylvania during the present drouth. In all this 
section, covering a half dozen large counties, 
not over a dozen men employed directly by the 
forestry commission regularly have looked after 
the forest fires. Our constables and their forces 
and the forestry and game wardens—what few 
there are—have for weeks fought these fires 
with splendid results, but some of the vast 
sums paid to high-priced officials at Harrisburg 
and elsewhere by this commission should be 
spent to hire good men along the fire lines if 
our forests are to be preserved. 
Our State constabulary, a very efficient body 
of men, could and should be used during the 
prevalence of such'fires. They would be able 
to pick up a few of the “bee hunters” and others 
who carelessly and maliciously set fire to our 
forests and teach them a lesson of value to them 
and their kind. 
The damage to our game supply and all ani¬ 
mal life, caused by these forest fires, cannot be 
estimated. The damage to our water sheds or 
water supply cannot be repaired for years to 
come. The drying up of our streams and the 
destruction of fish matters but little. The power 
dams erected on our larger streams, the paper 
mills, tanneries and coal mines have already done 
their deadly work. No increased appropriation, 
talked of for the fish commission, can raise fish 
in our polluted and poisoned streams. Every 
pound of game fi^h furnished the people to-day 
by the money of the State costs at least five 
dollars. The nearly two hundred thousand dol¬ 
lars appropriated every two years to the fish 
commission, or a part of it, could better be de¬ 
voted to the cleaning up of our streams and the 
protection to our forests. 
537 
For over fifty years I have lived in the moun¬ 
tains of Pennsylvania. I have fished and hunted 
all over them and I ought to know whereof I 
speak. F. G. H. 
Imported Pheasants. 
Buffalo, N. Y., Sept. 23. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: It seems to me that the following clip¬ 
ping from Rural New Yorker, of Sept. 12, in¬ 
dicates a situation which is important enough 
to warrant careful investigation: 
The Jerusalem correspondent of the Penn Van, N. Y., 
Express said recently: 
“The pheasant problem is getting serious. A list of 
damages will be strictly kept and the State asked to 
settle for all. The pheasant is more destructive than 
the squirrel cr crow in corn, and the grape grower is 
the prey of the Mongolian pheasant. The domestic 
fowls and turkeys are carefully shut up and guarded, 
while the State turns thousands of ravenous pheasants 
out on the grape owner, and prevents the owner of the 
grapes from protecting the property that he has a 
warranty deed for, and you cannot keep the State from 
trespassing on your lands by putt-ng up signs, etc. 
They would have the same legal r’Vht to import sheep 
from Colorado as pheasants from Manchuria and turn 
them loose on the fruit grower to destroy his crops. 
The Mongolian pheasant is a nuisance.” 
I believe the farmers and fruit growers need the help 
of the agricultural press to aid us in a fight against the 
game laws. I cannot believe that our State Legislature 
has any moral or .even a legal right to compel the owners 
of private property to harbor wildfowl and animals, and 
forbid the owner from defending his property from 
being destroyed, and worst of all. issue licenses for 
others to trespass upon him, tramping down his grain, 
berries, etc., breaking the fences, and shooting the 
stock, either by accident or on purpose. Now, if these 
same conditions could exist in the towns and cities 
such laws would be repealed so quickly it would make 
your head snap. With insect pests, rabbits, pheasants, 
crows, woodchucks, and fruit-eating birds, potato bugs, 
etc., it is a continuous fight from one year’s end to the 
other, to have anything. Let people who work in the 
factories remember what Hale said about the eight-hour 
plan on the farm; it was eight hours in the forenoon 
and eight hours in the afternoon. Ts it any wonder 
young men are backward about taking up farming as a 
business? A. TL 
From time to time similar articles have ap¬ 
peared in this eminently respectable journal, all 
of the same tenor. All a protest against the 
depredations against the farmers which, it is 
claimed, the pheasants are committing. It hardly 
seems possible that these splendid game birds 
have increased to such an extent as to be a real 
nuisance. May I suggest that reports from your 
subscribers living in, say Orleans county, and 
other districts, the location of which could be 
obtained from the Rural New Yorker, would be 
of considerable interest. A real sentiment against 
the introduction of these birds is being devel¬ 
oped with apparently real justification by the 
above paper. This should not be unless the facts 
of the matter are such as to leave no doubt of 
the correctness of their stand. 
Edward A. Eames. 
Texas Bison. 
* 
Sixteen bison were shipped from Dallas, Tex., 
recently, consigned to zoological parks in Chi¬ 
cago, Cleveland. Buffalo and New York. They 
were purchased from Harvey Palmer, a Texas 
ranchman. It is said the purchase price was 
$1,000 each. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
tup fly you regularly. 
Game Reservations. 
Boston, Mass., Sept. 18 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Complaints are constantly being made 
of the scarcity of ruffed grouse and other game 
birds and the annually increasing numbers of 
gunners pursuing them. Without protection it 
is only a question of time with the smartest bird 
that flies. You may shorten the open season to 
twenty-four hours without avail. The remedy 
is in protection. Let every town in every State 
in the Union set apart from 500 to 1,000 acres 
or more of land adapted to the needs of ruffed 
grouse, quail, woodcock, snipe, wild duck or 
other birds. Let these lands be properly posted 
and protected by State laws and the birds will 
soon learn that they can here rear their young 
and dwell in safety without fear of the snare 
of the fowler or gun of the sportsman. The 
overflow would stock the surrounding covers 
and our birds would be always with us. 
If the States or towns should not see fit to 
adopt this method, there should be in every 
community enough public spirited men to see 
that this plan is carried out for the benefit of 
future generations. I would like to hear from 
other readers of Forest and Stream on this 
subject. Geo. L. Brown. 
Canadian Camp. 
The semi-annual dinner of the Canadian 
Camp, an organization of sportsmen who have 
camped in Canada, will be held at the Hotel 
Astor, New York city, on the evening of Nov. 
13. There is every indication that this will be 
one of the most interesting and best attended 
meetings the club has ever held. 
Among the well known speakers who will give 
brief addresses on outdoor themes are: Dr. 
John Warren Achorn, of Boston, known as the 
Woodser; Frank M. Chapman, the naturalist; 
Dr. Elwood Worcester, of Boston; Gilbert 
Evans, of Brooklyn; Dr. George L. Porter, of 
Bridgeport, and others. The toastmaster will 
be the well known poet Will Carleton, and the 
guest of honor will be one of the internationally 
famous outdoor men of the day. 
The gastronomic feast will include many un¬ 
usual novelties from the field and forest con¬ 
tributed by the members as they have found the 
specimens during their fall outing trips. 
Partridges for Connecticut. 
The State game wardens held a meeting in 
their rooms in the State Capitol at Hartford 
recently and consummated a deal to purchase 
ten thousand Hungarian partridges from a firm 
of Pennsylvania breeders and importers. The 
firm will deliver the birds before the first of 
January, and the game commissioner will see 
that they are evenly distributed to the different 
game aviaries throughout the State. The New 
Haven Journal-Courier says that it is believed 
that the effort to breed the Hungarian partridge 
in this country, which was started only recently, 
will be a complete success. A year ago there 
were several hundred pairs of these birds set 
free in this State, and from the reports received 
from other States where they have been dis¬ 
tributed, the game commissioners believe that 
the Hungarian birds are unquestionably the birds 
for this State, and that there will be plenty of 
game if the hunters do not kill off the t’r.vJs as 
fast as they are set free. 
