234 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Feb. ii, 1911- 
Y OU know mallards—wisest and wariest of all 
ducks- Solomons of the air. You can t knock 
down mallards with a paddle nor can you get them 
with a gun that plasters its shots all over the face 
of creation. 
A mallard shot is generally a long shot and long 
shots require a hard-shooting, close-shooting gun. 
That’s why the long-headed man who goes to a 
mallard country takes a Lefever. When he swings 
it on a towering pair of mallards he does not ques¬ 
tion the result. He know it 
TWO CLEAN KILLS 
The reason a Lefever kills clean and sure and 
far is Lefever Taper Boring. 
But if you buy a Lefever for the taper boring 
alone, you will get more than your money s worth. 
For instance, you will never be handicapped with 
looseness at the hinge joint. The exclusive Lefever 
lefever 
SHOT GUNS 
Sixteen other exclusive T.efever features andLefe- 
ver simplicity and strength make the S 28 gun the 
peer of any $50 gun on the market. Upwards to 
- 1 , 000 . Send for freecatalog and get Lefever wise. 
Lefkver Arms Co., 23 Maltbie St., Syracuse,N.Y 
Durston Special 
;0 Gauge. Price $ 28.00 
Ffi'RCVJOjV'J' 
Patent Reflecting Lamps 
THOMAS J. CONROY, Agent, 
28 John Street, 
Cor. Nassau St., 
New York. 
With Silver Plated 
LocomotiveReflec- 
torsand Adjustable 
Attachments. 
UNIVERSAL LAMP, 
For Sportsmen’s use. Combines Head 
Jack(Front and Top), Boat Jack, 
Gamp, Belt and Dash Lamp, Hand Lan¬ 
tern, etc. 
EXCELSIOR LAMP, 
For Night Driving, Hunting, Fishing, etc. 
Is adjustable to any kind of dash or vehi¬ 
cle. Send stamp for Illustrated Catalogue 
and address all orders Lamp Department. 
WILDFOWL SHOOTING. 
series and are reforesting on a large scale. In 
1909 this department tried to secure informa¬ 
tion on this subject, but was unable to secure 
complete data. It is, however, certain that pri¬ 
vate landowners have planted about 6,000 acres 
in the last ten years on their lands, and this 
commission has planted nearly as much more 
State land. The difficulty with private planting 
in the past has been to secure the necessary stock 
which we hope will soon be overcome by either 
State or commercial nurseries being able to fill 
the demand with good material at a reasonable 
price. 
The demand for trees last spring (1910) was 
far greater than our supply. The result of this 
year’s planting has not yet been compiled, but 
the summary for 1909 shows that about 1,091,000 
trees were planted. 
This shows that through our efforts 1,000 acres 
of private land were reforested during the past 
year. The trees were set at various spacings 
from as wide as ten feet by ten feet to as close 
as six feet by six feet, and some of the trees 
were used for underplanting, while a quantity 
of seedlings was set in nursery rows for plant¬ 
ing in 1910 which, when planted, will increase 
the above acreage. The success of the work is 
indicated by the very high percentage (average 
90 per cent.) living at the end of the first sea¬ 
son, coupled with the most favorable opinions 
in regard to this work. 
The most variable figures are given for the 
cost of planting. The prices range from $3 per 
acre for underplanting, when 400 transplants are 
set, to $15 to $16 per acre for setting transplants, 
at the rate of 1,200 per acre, but in the latter 
case excessive cartage, inexperience, high wages 
and board of men increased the cost. The gen¬ 
eral average, including cost of trees, when trans¬ 
plants are set six feet by six feet (1,200 per 
acre) ranges from $8 to $10 per acre. In sev¬ 
eral cases small plantings have been done at 
$6 to $7 per acre. 
An examination of the applications shows that 
several parties are planting to protect their water 
supply, among these being both municipal water 
works and commercial companies. Our largest 
pulp and paper companies are planting in order 
to secure future supply of pulp wood. Many 
lumber companies are reforesting in order to 
grow lumber. The number of farmers and small 
landowners who are reforesting unused portions 
of their farms are the most numerous, but they 
usually buy in small quantity. 
There are in this State thousands of acres of 
abandoned land which was never intended for 
agricultural purposes and will produce a good 
investment if properly planted. 
This commission will be glad to assist private 
owners in this work as far as its time and ability 
will permit. It is the expectation that land- 
owners with the assistance of the information 
in this publication will be able to proceed in¬ 
telligently and successfully in the work. 
Wells over the fields when he works and is so 
jealous over him that it will not allow a dog 
to get near.—Denver Republican. 
TRAPPING WEASELS. 
Containing Scientific and Practical Descriptions 
Wildfowl; Their Resorts. Habits. Flights and the Mort 
Successful Method of Hunting rhem. Treating of the 
selection of guns for wildfowl shooting, how to load, ann 
and to use them; decoys and the proper manner of 
using them; blinds, how and where to construct them, 
boats, how to use and build them scientifically, re¬ 
trievers, their characteristics, how to select and tram 
them. By William Bruce Leffingwell. Illustrated, 373 
pages. Price, in cloth, $1.50; half morocco, $2.50. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
GANDER IN PLACE OF DOG. 
Ganders may take the place of dogs as pets 
and protectors in Wold county if others can 
be found as wise and helpful as the gander 
owned by Harry Wells of Gill. It takes its 
place on the wagon seat with its owner when¬ 
ever he goes to town and remains there until 
home again. , . , 
At home it keeps guard over everything and 
keeps chickens out of the garden. I follows 
It takes some money and very much patient 
application for a man with a dozen traps to go 
into the Maine woods in winter and capture 
enough weasel skins to line a cloak for his 
wife, says the Sun. Weasels are nevei 
abundant in any place. A person may 
live in the midst of a weasel country 
all winter and never see a specimen, 
though by putting out a dozen traps baited 
with raw beef dabbled in blood or with fresh 
fish scorched over a fire he can often catch 
from three to ten every night for weeks. 
The apparent scarcity is curious. The weasel 
has no serious enemy in the animal kingdom, 
and being capable ot fighting ferociously and 
slaying a rat four times its own weight, there 
is no reason why it should not multiply very 
rapidly, as it produces four litters of young 
every season, averaging from five to seven to 
a litter. 
Most old hunters and woodsmen are aware 
that the fur of the weasel is the finest and 
glossiest borne by any animal in the world, but 
weasels have never been trapped much on ac¬ 
count of their apparent scarcity, and not until 
the present century was well under way did 
the fur dealers think them worth quoting in the 
lists of raw furs. . . 
Six years ago the large dealers listed weasel 
pelts at 10 cents each, provided they were whole 
and captured in mid-winter, when the fur is 
pure white with a black tip at the end ot the 
tail. This winter the same kind of skins sell 
for from 20 to 25 cents each, and the dealers 
cannot find half enough to fill_ the demand. 
Usually they want to buy them in lots of 500 
or more, all pure white and of uniform texture. 
Last winter a dealer in Caribou offered as 
high as 50 cents apiece for the last sixty pelts 
needed to complete an order for 50° skins which 
he had been three years in filling. 
“If anybody thinks it is like playing to go 
out and collect 500 weasel pelts said Bitty 
Allen, an old trapper of Fort Fairfield, he 
ought to try it once and find out. I took it up 
partly for fun but chiefly to reduce my waist 
line last winter, and followed it up for three 
months, and while my weight was reduced from 
^do to 160 pounds and my health improved - 
every day, the result of my work and worry 
was less than ioo skins that were salable. 
“Think of what I undertook to do. Lne 
average skin from the average weasel is 4 
inches long by 2 inches wide, so that a square 
foot of weasel pelts when sewed together holds 
the desirable parts of from eighteen to twenty 
weasels. This square foot is of no use to any¬ 
body unless twenty-four other square feet ot 
weasel are found to complete the lining of the 
cloak, and twenty-five square feet of pelts, rep¬ 
resenting twenty weasels to the square toot, 
means weeks and months of hard labor in the 
catching and other weeks and months in the 
skinning and tanning and still other weeks and 
months in the matching and_ sewing togethei 
so as to make a uniform fabric. . 
“I do not know where the prepared skins 
are sold finally. Trappers of the Hudson s 
Bay Company around Montreal and Quebec 
tell me they are sold to private customers in 
St. Petersburg and Leipsic, which are the chief 
market places for rare and costly furs in the 
"^‘There is a story that the early Jesuit fathers, 
who visited Canada more than 200 years ago, 
brought from France a secret process for tan¬ 
ning and cutting small pelts and that the secret 
was conveyed to a few intelligent Indians, who 
passed the formulas down in their families from 
generation to generation. Anyhow I believe 
it is a fact that the threee most valuable furs 
in the world, the black fox, the fur seal and 
the sea otter, are all tanned by Canadian In¬ 
dians before they are sent to London to be 
sold at auction.” 
