Forest and Stream 
erms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. / 
Six Months, $1.50. ' 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1909. 
j 
1 
VOL. LXXI1I—No. 7. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 
jopyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Lotjis Dean Speir, Treasurer, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
i,l be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
te for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
THE FARMER AND THE GAME. 
Ve have been told for these many years that 
I, life of a farmer was a, hard one, that it was 
Jicult for him to make both ends meet, and that 
; h year he was falling a little more behind. 
;his was ever true in the past, it is not true 
v. The average farmer probably lives as 
ily and as well as the man in any other vo- 
'on of life-—and is far more independent, 
nevertheless, the farmer wishes to make all 
t he can out of his land. He knows that an 
e of ground will produce so much corn, small 
in or vegetables, so many pounds of beef 
mutton; he should know that an acre of 
;er will produce so many pounds of fish, 
hat he does not know is that an acre of land 
d produce a certain number of quail or par- 
rlges, and that by having these birds on the 
jjd along with his other crops, the land will 
*»duce more of these other crops. The quail 
'1 lessen the production of weeds on the acres 
tr which it roams, leaving so much more 
ice for plants that have an economic value. 
1 will destroy the insects that devour his 
owing crops. More than that, the farmer 
to has plenty of birds on his place will find no 
iculty in renting the shooting for a good 
ce, or if he prefers, will have good shooting 
: himself and his boys. 
n a town in Illinois a farmers’ association 
is organized in which each member was 
vileged to permit any one to hunt on his own 
:m, but only in the member’s company. Be- 
<e long the membership grew to seventy-five, 
fitrolling 12,000 to 15,000 acres of land. All 
1 members strove to promote the strict en- 
(cement of the game laws, and, working to¬ 
iler, almost did away with poaching and 
:spassing, while, notwithstanding the shooting, 
game birds increased in number. 
Something of this sort is being done by 
:mers in southwestern Massachusetts, who 
>4 that they can have a good stock of quail 
> combining to preserve the birds and yet 
• sing the shooting rights. 
>ome thoughtless Americans—not landholders 
disapprove the posting of the land and leasing 
: shooting privilege, saying that it is un- 
•.erican. So it is. But the Americans are not 
> fect—as yet—and the old thoughtless fashion 
• permitting any stranger to rush over one’s 
land and destroy the wild creatures that gain 
their subsistence from that land is one of the 
wasteful American practices that we shall do 
well to get rid of as speedily as may be. 
Little or nothing can be done to protect the 
game without the sympathy and assistance of 
the farmers, and until the farmer is genuinely 
interested in game protection and can be made 
to see that by protecting the game, he and his 
family are benefited, much of the talk about 
game protection is a mere waste of words. 
That portion of the Massachusetts Crop Re¬ 
port for May, 1909 , which has to do with game 
protection, ought to be in the hands of every 
farmer in New England. E. H. Forbush has 
preached in this little paper a sermon that they 
will do well to heed. 
“IN MENELIK’S KINGDOM.’’ 
Interest in Africa and African hunting was 
never so widespread in the United States as it 
is to-day, when parties of big-game hunters are 
constantly returning from that land and large 
collections of natural history material are being 
sent to this country. This lends an especial 
attraction to Mr. Lethbridge’s article beginning 
this week, which deals with one of the least 
known portions of Africa—Abyssinia. 
Quite apart from the interest of travel in that 
strange land, and the hunting of the mysterious 
beasts which inhabit it, Mr. Lethbridge’s article 
has a practical value that can hardly be over¬ 
estimated, for he gives in detail the precise 
route to- be followed by any other traveler who 
may wish to reach the borders of and to pene¬ 
trate Menelik’s Kingdom. Travel through that 
country is in many respects wholly unlike the 
African travel of which most of us have been 
accustomed to hear; the journeying on foot 
through fever-ridden swamps and jungles, where 
the traveler was in peril of his life, not so much 
from dangerous beasts as from disease. Here, 
the journey is over high plains, dry for much 
of the year, the marches of the route being 
regulated by the presence of water on the trail. 
The hunting is for the usual African animals; 
lions, leopards, zebras, antelope—or buck as they 
are called—in great numbers, among them the 
gemsbok, the greater and lesser koodoo-, and 
further in the interior, elephants, for it will be 
remembered that the world’s record pair of ele¬ 
phant tusks came from Abyssinia, to find a rest¬ 
ing place in the park of the New York Zoologi¬ 
cal Society among the National Collection of 
Heads and Horns. 
To penetrate through this country a traveler 
must have courage, endurance and above all ex¬ 
perience—the experience in traveling, but above 
all experience in handling men. These Abys- 
sinians are said to be independent and free- 
very different from the more timid Swahili of 
the southern coast. Mr. Lethbridge’s trip must 
have been one of absorbing interest. 
BROWN TROUT. 
It is often stated by fish culturists that in 
streams in which both brown and brook trout 
abound, the latter will not long survive. Anglers 
do not all share this belief. Theodore Gordon, 
one of our closest observers of the habits of 
trout in streams containing brown, brook and 
rainbow trout, says in a communication printed 
elsewhere in this issue that the fishing has im¬ 
proved during the past fifteen years. He refers 
especially to the following streams, as well as 
others: Willowemoc, Beaverkill, Neversink, 
Esopus. These are all within week-end jour¬ 
neys of New York city, and all through the 
season are fished constantly. 
Mr. Gordon’s deductions and those of a great 
many other veteran anglers with whom we 
have fished and discussed this interesting sub¬ 
ject are in accord. No doubt the brown trout 
does make away with small brook trout at times, 
but evidence printed in these columns in recent 
years, and the testimony referred to above, 
justify the growing belief that the brown trout 
is not the villain , he was once said to be. All 
are agreed that, a brown trout of goodly size 
and a fighter is not one soon to be forgotten. 
Further testimony on the subject will be wel¬ 
comed by all who have passed happy hours in 
fishing for the brown trout in streams where 
it is now found in fair numbers, but in which 
the native trout are far less abundant than they 
were in the old days. 
In an appeal for increased popular support, 
the American Civic Association has issued a 
card setting forth its purposes as follows: 
The American Civic Association aims to make Ameri¬ 
can living conditions clean, healthful, attractive; to ex¬ 
tend the making of public parks; to promote the opening 
of gardens and playgrounds for children and recreation 
centers for grown folks; to abate public nuisances—in¬ 
cluding objectionable signs, unnecessary poles and wires, 
unpleasant and wasteful smoking factory chimneys—to 
make the buildings and the surroundings of railway 
stations and factories attractive; to extend the practical 
influence of schools; to protect existing trees and to 
encourage intelligent tree planting; to preserve great 
scenic wonders, such as Niagara Falls and the White 
Mountains, from commercial spoliation. 
The crusade against billboards which mar the 
beauty of forest, meadow and roadside goes on 
apace and is daily gaining supporters. The per¬ 
sons who make, or cause to be made, objection¬ 
able billboards are themselves aiding the move¬ 
ment, and the revulsion of feeling against the 
practice is widespread. There has been a happy 
change in the public sentiment on this and. kin¬ 
dred subjects within the past few years, and the 
feeling is constantly growing. The time is com¬ 
ing when all these abominations will be swept 
away. To preserve all natural objects and to 
render the handiwork of man less objectionable 
to the eye and mind of all our people is a duty 
every man, woman and child owes to their com¬ 
munity and the nation. 
