168 
FOREST AND STREAM 
A VERY MODEST START 
HREE hundred thousand dollars which Congress 
appropriated for civilian rifle ranges, is a meager 
sum to set apart for training the youth of the na¬ 
tion—and the military aged, for comparatively few of 
the latter have had facilities for learning—how to shoot. 
If marksmanship and familiarity with firearms is to he 
fostered in America as part of this country’s preparation 
for eventualities, it must be gone into on a much more 
serious scale than that. 
It is reasonable to compare expenditures for such a 
purpose to those which accomplish other preparations 
toward the same end. Fifty million dollars now pre¬ 
dicted as the probable cost of superdreadnaughts that 
are to come, is a gigantic sum in figures and in potential 
power for buying human labor. 
But if ships suitable for defending American rights 
require that outlay to slip them down the ways, let there 
be no hesitation in providing it. And though other 
phases of girding up the nation cost as much, let us esti¬ 
mate its value first and then its cost. By enthusiasts it 
is called hackneyed to compare other things to “what it 
costs to build a battleship”; but that does not make the 
comparison less striking. 
With one-tenth of fifty million dollars, rifle ranges 
with attractive facilities could be established in every 
Congressional district in the country. The average 
young man wants to know how to shoot, and many of 
them would spend week-ends and longer periods at 
ranges within convenient travelling distance of their 
homes if they were afforded an opportunity to do so. 
Erection of such ranges need not interfere with other 
preparations for defense. If we come to universal train¬ 
ing at once, they will serve a practical field of operations 
for part of the training month or two. If that step is 
delayed, voluntary training at rifle shooting during civil¬ 
ian days, will be a basis on which to build a soldiery. 
And money spent making men better fighting units is 
best spent toward defense. On the civilian range they 
give their time, their qnergy and their devotion to get¬ 
ting “ready.” Those gifts of theirs have money value 
that mounts to a tremendous sum even when considered 
in returns upon the millions outlaid. 
THE SPORTSMEN'S SHOW 
N all sides the good influence of sportsmen’s shows 
is admitted. As a medium of advertising sporting 
goods it is in a class by itself; and that of course 
is a substantial service to the outdoorsman. 
Every sportsman is eager to see the new rod, the new 
boot, the new tent, or the new gun—anything in the way 
of an outer’s equipment has his loyal attention. And 
there is the opportunity for sportsmen to meet and ex¬ 
change ideas, sometimes amalgamating blindly opposing 
forces into a union of strength. And even branches of 
sport that showed startling signs of decadence, have been 
rejuvenated and brought back into public favor through 
such conclaves. 
An incidental but serious good that the show does is 
to convert the tyro—the man who smells occasionally of 
the outdoors but who has never really tasted of it. It is 
often the first time that Nature’s alluring masterpiece is 
laid open before him. And it shows him what she has 
to offer. 
Until then he may have seen, in the undomesticated 
places, only their discomforts for pampered bodies and 
nerves. Then suddenly reality almost exists before him: 
the snug log cabin, the babbling trout stream, the make- 
believe forests, with the endless paths of tan bark through 
green grasses of stained excelsior, visualize joys he now 
must taste. 
It is a pity that the country must ever miss an oppor¬ 
tunity for thus converting insiders into outers. The 
National Sportsmen’s Show has been a power in that 
direction, and its omission this year must not be allowed 
to dim the interest it holds for so many. 
_ i 
GET OUT AND GROW 
N the battlefields of Europe, of Turkey, of East 
Africa, undersized Englishmen are fighting along¬ 
side of tall, brawny colonials from Australia, South 
Africa and Canada. The colonists are descended from 
just such Englishmen as those they now exceed by four 
inches in average height and thirty pounds in weight. 
Why should this be so? 
Is it the climate, or other geological conditions? Not 
likely. 
Such marked improvement in physique results logically 
from turning the sheep into new and wider pastures. 
Suppose conditions were reversed: South Africa and 
Australia overcrowded, their people huddled in towns 
and cities and cramped countrysides; England a wild 
land, sparsely populated. If a few of such Africans 
emigrated to the isles, would they degenerate in height, 
physique or mental capacity? No; for there is probably 
no better land in all the world for producing men—if 
it could give them room enough to drink in the sunlight. 
Animals confined and pampered may develop qualities 
admired by their enslaving owners, but they lose pro¬ 
portionately their virility. You can grow rabbits in the 
back-yard, but lions must have room. 
Even trees will not bear overcrowding. Some kinds 
of trees will grow in a hedge, but they become dwarfed 
and dependent on artificial care, and lose the magnificent 
independence of the lone and sparsely growing fir or 
redwood. 
Certain hedgeplants, given only room, develop eventu¬ 
ally into trees. Let us combat the tendency to confine 
within a hedgerow, Nature’s classic, man. 
