22 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 7, 1911. 
Some News and a Little Gossip. 
The keel of the new Plant'schooner has been 
cast, and has about 86 tons of lead. The ma¬ 
terial for the construction of the hull has been 
assembled at Bristol and the work of setting up 
the frames is proceeding very fast. This yacht 
is to be ready for racing next June and much 
is expected of her. The vessel will be of the 
centerboard type, a centerboard dropping 
through the lead keel as in the Queen. This 
will give the new yacht an advantage at wind¬ 
ward work over the Westward, which, being 
built for European racing, had to be a keel 
craft. Centerboards are taxed on the other 
side of the Atlantic, and many think properly, 
too. If a centerboard is of any advantage to a 
yacht, and it apparently is or Herreshoff would 
not use it, then it should be paid for. In the 
races between Queen and Elmina the center- 
board was certainly of advantage. This was 
noticeable in a run of the New York Y. C. 
some two or three years ago. The yachts were 
beating through the Vineyard Sound, and it 
was nip and tuck between Queen and Elmina 
with the latter in the weather position. They 
were short tacking into the beach, and Queen 
could not use her centerboard. Elmina held 
Queen under her lee until Cuttyhunk was 
reached, but as soon as the two got into deep 
water Queen dropped her centerboard and at 
once pulled out and won the race. 
It has been announced that Morton F. Plant 
has engaged Capt. William S. Dennis to sail 
his new yacht. Capt. Dennis has for many years 
sailed the Elminas for Frederick F. Brewster 
and sailed them well, so that Mr. Brewster has 
a large collection of handsome trophies. 
Some attribute Capt. Dennis’s success to luck and 
say that he is nearly always favored by slants of 
wind that others do not find. If this happened 
only now and then it might be attributed to 
luck, but Capt. Dennis has a faculty of telling 
just how the wind will shift if it is going to 
change and how it will come in when it has 
died away, and this must be attributed more to 
experience than to luck, and it is this experi¬ 
ence that has enabled him to win many prizes. 
At one time it was thought that Capt. Barr 
would have charge of this new yacht because 
he had sailed the Ingomar for Morton F. 
Plant in her campaign abroad, but Capt. Barr 
is still abroad looking after the Westward, and 
this is taken as an indication that he is to have 
charge of the Westward again for a second sea¬ 
son. With Capt. Barr sailing the Westward and 
Capt. Dennis handling the new yacht the rac¬ 
ing should be of the best, and with the other 
big craft, old and new, in the racing the interest 
will be much increased. 
The Rochester Y. C. is to challenge for the 
Fisher cup now held by the Royal Canadian Y. 
C. This challenge was discussed at the last 
meeting of the Rochester yachtsmen and Eric 
Moore placed his yacht Seneca unconditionally 
When the late A. N. Cheney declared it was 
not all of fishing to catch fish, I doubt if he had 
in mind one form of amusement intimately asso¬ 
ciated with fishing which was not practiced to 
any extent during his span of life. Hunting 
with the camera came first, and here is a picture 
that belongs in the class of those which might 
well be called fishing with the camera, since in 
this pastime a rise is all important, and the bass 
shown have certainly risen until they appear to 
be in the record class for size. 
Again, anglers who produce big fish generally 
explain the length of time their catches have 
been out of water and estimate the number of 
ounces of weight lost by shrinkage, but in the 
salubrious air of Arkansas, where J. M. Rose 
made this catch with his camera, it is plain that 
in this instance at least the very opposite of 
shrinkage took place, and once again the camera 
was initiated to full membership in the Ananias 
Club, thus lowering its traditional reputation for 
truthfulness still another notch. 
Seriously, had I the choice, I would prefer to 
be photographed in this fashion than to be placed 
alongside of a rack of decaying big sea fish a la 
Catalina. For, in the former case, no one would 
be expected to ask the size of the bass, while 
in the latter one might be accused of keeping 
company with the same old stuffed fish that so 
many would-be anglers have claimed as their 
own. 
* * * 
A retail lumber business in the South was 
purchased by a very young but enthusiastic Ken¬ 
tuckian who had ideas of his own as to adver¬ 
tising. One of these was to cut up pine boards 
to proper size and have printed on them in big 
CAUGHT WITH THE CAMERA. 
type, “No shooting allowed.” Underneath this 
legend appeared an invitation to “Buy your lum¬ 
ber from-.” In the local papers he adver¬ 
tised these boards as free to all who might apply 
for them, and some of the results were astonish¬ 
ing in a country where the only warning signs 
referred to dogs; one that I recall being worded 
as follows: “Fer a bad dog lok out.” Sortie of 
the recipients of souvenirs placed them on the 
front gates of their yards, others on their houses, 
and a wag stuck one up on the local rifle range, 
whereupon it was employed as a target. Far out 
in the backwoods, three miles from a house, and 
on unfenced land owned by the State, I came 
upon several of these signs. Curious to learn 
who put them there, I followed the road, facing 
away from town on the theory that the man who 
obtained them had found satisfaction enough 
in getting something for nothing, and had tired 
of the things, but felt himself in duty bound to 
put them up somewhere. Sure enough, the last 
board was on State land near the boundary line 
of the first farm, and the farm itself had none. 
The owner was always glad to have shooters 
about, provided they would stop at his house, for 
he was a sportsman himself in a way, and often 
accompanied his guests. 
* * * 
I wonder if this is the reason why some peo¬ 
ple shoot first and investigate afterward while 
in the woods? A Texas paper, in referring to 
greenhorns, says that they “shoot at anything 
they see promiscuously.” It seems a good ex¬ 
planation : they “see promiscuously” and shoot 
in the same fashion—an unlucky combination 
for anyone within range. 
* * * 
A Newark paper which prints fishing and 
shooting news, replies in the following novel 
fashion to an inquirer: 
“Deer do not shed their antlers every year. 
If they did the horns would never grow any 
longer than two inches.” 
Just why this near-naturalist fixed on two 
inches is no clearer than the reason for the first 
misstatement. 
Grizzly King. 
