576 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 9, 1910. 
fish and thoroughly brown the other side. They 
want to be well cooked, so that they are not all 
dried up, but still are pretty nearly crisp. Do 
not then let them stand on the back of the stove 
to soak any grease. Time your meal so that the 
trout will come right off the fire to the table 
when they are done. 
Mershon Woods Stew.— This is a famous dish 
with the Saginaw Crowd, who frequently get up 
a picnic party, so that I will make the stew for 
them. It is a dish for hungry people and in cold 
weather after a day's tramp I know of nothing 
that touches the spot better. Take a large iron 
kettle, if possible; if not, the modern invention 
of galvanized or enamel kettle will do. Suppose 
there are six or eight in your party. I would 
begin by peeling eight or ten good-sized pota¬ 
toes, one-half dozen onions, three or four car¬ 
rots, about one-quarter head of cabbage, two or 
three parsnips, if you have them, a couple of 
green peppers and one red pepper. Remember 
that any of these ingredients can be left out ex¬ 
cept the pork, onions and potatoes, but I will 
tell you what I put in when I have it. A pint 
of fresh garden peas or a can of canned peas. 
Three or four fresh tomatoes or a two-quart 
can of canned ones, a little okra, celery, a hand¬ 
ful of lima beans or string beans. In fact, any¬ 
thing from the garden does not go amiss and be 
sure to have plenty of potatoes. Now as to the 
meats: One-half dozen slices of salt pork, cut 
about one-quarter inch thick and say about three 
or four inches square, about that amount. One 
chicken disjointed. Do not ever break the bones 
in a fowl, even to cut the legs off. One piece 
for the breast, second joint and leg for another, 
the wings, the backbone and neck and bone. 
That is the way to cut up a chicken. Get a 
knuckle of veal, or one or two veal chops will 
do, a brisket of lamb, say a pound or two, or 
two or three mutton chops will do; about one 
and a half pounds of round steak cut up in small 
pieces. Now take your pot and put in a layer 
of potatoes, then put in the balance of the stuff 
in layers. The object is to get it well mixed and 
have the potatoes and vegetables well scattered 
through the meat. Season as you go along. Take 
cold, pure water and fill the pot full. Put it 
over the fire and let it cook for not less than 
four hours. Never let it boil hard, but keep it 
just at the boiling point so it simmers and bub¬ 
bles. When it first conies to the boiling point 
it is a good plan to skim it to some extent, and 
if it is too greasy you can skim off some of the 
fat from time to time. If it boils down so that 
you think it is too thick, add a little water, but 
be sure you cook it as long as four hours and 
longer will not hurt. The smell of the stew 
makes everyone hungry. Maybe that is one rea¬ 
son why I cook it so long. Stir it a good deal 
and that will tend to disseminate the vegetables 
and break them up, so that they are hardly dis¬ 
tinguishable. Have good hot soup plates and 
ladle it out and everyone will come for more. 
Always remember this in boiling any meat. 
Corned beef, for instance, if you boil it hard 
you will make it tough. You can take a spring 
chicken and boil it so hard that you will make 
it tough, but I do not care how old a hen is 
or how tough the corn beef is before, you can 
make it absolutely tender if you will cook it 
long enough and cook it just at the boiling point, 
but not let it boil hard. 
Rciiv Fried Potatoes.— This is one of the hand¬ 
iest camp dishes and when well executed ohe of 
the best. Take a good big frying-pan and slice 
the raw potatoes quite thin, not quite so thin as 
for Saratoga chips, but pretty nearly. Put in 
several good lumps of butter into the frying-pan 
and then put in your potatoes, a little salt, be 
sure not to get them too salty, and plenty of 
black pepper. Then put them over the fire and * 
every little while with a pancake turner or knife 
just give them a turn. Keep the cover on the 
frying-pan until the potatoes are nearly done. 
Then remove it and let them steam a little bit, 
but keep turning over until you have about two- 
thirds of them brown. Do not put in so much 
butter that they are greasy and be sure that the 
pepper is put in at first so that it will thoroughly 
go through and season them. Do not hurry them 
in cooking them so they will burn. 
W. B. Mershon. 
The Woodcock. 
Hyde Park, Vt. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
I offer a few observations on this most interest¬ 
ing bird, for I believe each one of us may learn 
something from reading another’s story. My 
opportunities for studying this bird have been 
rather limited and do not cover a great period 
of time. 
The woodcock breeds here 'in northern Ver¬ 
mont and nests along tjie small hill streams in 
the alder runs and in the thickets of the hill¬ 
side pastures. Their nests are found in April, 
and once, in 1907, when considerable snow was 
on the ground. This nest was well up in a 
hillside pasture, and it would seem that for 
years one or more pairs of woodcock have 
nested in this same locality, as a farmer who is 
accustomed to pass through this pasture after 
his day in the sugar woods, tells me that each 
spring he has here witnessed the aerial love- 
making of this bird. A few ’cock are found in 
this cover in the fall, though not as many, I 
should judge, as are bred there, and the shoot¬ 
ing of these birds does not seem to make any 
difference with the number that breed there 
the next spring. 
In answer to the question whether woodcock 
appear to be holding their own as to numbers, 
will say that I believe they are. Some covers 
vary from year to year, probably because of 
seasons of unusual drouth or other natural 
causes, while other covers seem to yield almost 
the same number of birds each year. For in¬ 
stance, in 1908 fifteen birds were killed in a 
certain cover. The past season the same cover 
yielded nine birds; but the smaller number was 
due to the fact that a considerable portion of 
the cover had been cut down the past summer, 
and that there was no flight in 1909. On the 
other hand, in 1908 a fairly good cover was 
entirely barren, probably because the stream 
which runs through it, had dried up during the 
drouth. But in 1909 five or six birds were 
killed in this cover. My personal experience 
for the past few years is that the total number 
of birds killed any season is often larger than 
that of the preceding, and that practically the 
same covers show no decrease due to the shoot¬ 
ing of the season before. In discussing this 
question with a friend who has hunted wood¬ 
cock in this section for many years, and who 
is a very careful observer, he stated that there 
are just as many woodcock in this locality to¬ 
day as there were twenty years ago. 
Here in the mountains, the fall flight is never 
very marked, although in normal seasons more 
birds can be found from about the 10th to the 
20th of October. I have found woodcock which 
I was certain were flight birds in September, 
but their appearance seems to depend entirely 
on the frosts. The past season there was no 
flight in this section, as the weather was very 
warm until the last of October. Then there 
came a sudden freeze with considerable snow 
and continued cold. Robins, blue birds and 
thrushes, present in good numbers up to this 
time, disappeared and likewise the native wood¬ 
cock, and the flight must have passed us by. 
One of the best woodcock covers we have 
was some twenty years ago a well cultivated 
meadow on which hay was cut. Later the 
stream running through it was dammed, a saw¬ 
mill built, and each spring the high water set 
back from the dam and flooded the meadow. 
The surface became covered with coatings of 
sawdust and sand, and alders, willows and 
.weeds soon sprung up. The soil is now very 
soft and yielding, owing to these successive 
coatings, and when kicked open discloses the 
presence of small worms in the old decaying 
sawdust. Without doubt this combination of 
soft soil and worms is the attraction for the 
woodcock. This is perhaps the only instance 
where sawdust dumped into a trout stream has 
proved a boon to sportsmen. 
One of the most interesting and, to me, un¬ 
accountable traits of the woodcock is its per¬ 
sistency in returning year after year to the 
same spot. There may be within a small radius 
other covers which, to the eye of even an ex¬ 
perienced sportsman, appear equally desirable, 
but the woodcock invariably shun them in 
preference for the old place. There is within 
the incorporated limits of this village a small 
piece of alders where some thirty years ago the 
writer hunted and once killed a woodcock with 
the small boy’s ever-ready, if primitive weapon, 
a stone thrown at short range. This, as I re¬ 
member it, was the only place where we boys 
ever found the long-billed birds. In course of 
time these alders were cut down and the land 
was cultivated for many years. Rather recently 
the ownership of the land changed and the 
alders havfe again started to grow up much as 
before. While passing through them last fall 
my dog, who was ranging ’ahead, gave a single 
bark, which is his way of telling me, when out 
of sight, that he has flushed game. On coming 
up with him he immediately began to draw and 
came to a point. Much to my surprise, up 
jumped a woodcock. After having been evicted 
for more than a quarter of a century Philohela 
had returned to his own. H. A. N. 
Ducks in Minnesota. 
Minneapolis, Minn., March 19. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: After one of the steadiest winters 
we have had for years, spring has opened up 
very early. The snow is gone and the ice is 
out of the rivers and streams, and the fish are 
running. Robins and bluebirds have been here 
nearly two weeks and the farmers have com¬ 
menced seeding. The ducks are coming up in 
great numbers, and since spring shooting has 
been abolished in this State (as it should be 
everywhere), large numbers of ducks nest in 
Minnesota and the fall shooting has vastly im¬ 
proved in consequence. A. Antisell Allen. 
