Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1908. 
VOL. LXX—No. 6. 
No. 346 Broadway, New York, 
a weekly Journal. 
Copyright, 1908, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary. 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
346 Broadway, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
'ill be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
a outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
aste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
, A WHOLESOME WINTER SPORT. 
Over much of the northern country the ground 
s now covered deep with snow; bitter cold has 
ardened the waters in lakes and streams, and 
een winds sweep over deserted fields, whistle 
.trough ragged hedgerows and bow the tree 
runks in naked woods. It is a hard time for 
11 outdoor life—these lengthening days when 
ae cold grows stronger. Especially is it hard 
or the birds. To a large extent their food is 
overed by snow, and, search as industriously as 
aey may, there is little enough to be found that 
tey can eat. 
The mammals have an easier time. Running 
1 all directions under the snow are the tunnels 
f the mice and shrews, which feed on the roots 
If grasses, the bark of the farmers’ fruit trees, 
lid much green vegetable life that it to be found. 
■ loon and squirrel and muskrat are snugly curled 
j in their winter nests, not to emerge until the 
’fid has broken; the hardy mink travels up and 
own the stream and catches fish and digs out 
ogs hidden in the bottom, and now and then 
ids a dead bird; while the tireless fox searches 
"erywhere for field mice, feeds on dead animals 
ing out in the fields, and sometimes visits the 
rmer’s poultry yard. 
The birds have the hardest time. For the seed 
ters, little is left now except the poor har- 
■st to be gleaned from the tops of weed stalks 
at project above the snow, or the tew berries 
at still cling to vines and trees. At best the 
ckings are small. The meat eaters have a 
od supply in the exposed crevices and crannies 
the bark of the trees, where lie hidden the 
gs and pupae of many insects. Moreover, here 
d there some friendly person has hung up in 
tree a bit of suet, or an old beef bone to which 
me meat clings, and when this is discovered 
is visited by the birds uittil all the food has 
en consumed. 
Now is the time for the sportsmen to go abroad 
:o the covers where he shot in autumn and to 
actice another sport. Instead of carrying his 
,n and a pocketful of cartridges, let him load 
nself with a grain sack containing an armful 
old hay and hayseed, and with a pocketful 
grain. Tracks in the snow,\ or his dog will 
3w him where the birds spend most of their 
ie, and in some sheltered place near here let 
n tramp down the snow as hard as he can 
over a space two or three yards in diameter, and 
there scatter his chaff, and on the chaff throw 
some handfuls of grain. From the spot that 
he has trodden down let him scatter out into 
the woods and field two or three lines of chaff, 
feeling sure that every bird that crosses one of 
these trails will follow it up, scratching and pick¬ 
ing among the hayseed, and at last finding the 
place where the grain is strewn. The food supply 
should be often renewed, and above all the chaff 
scattered again after every snowfall. 
The little birds about the house must be looked 
after too, and precisely such a place as has been 
made for the quail may be prepared for the small 
birds near one of the outhouses, or at some warm 
sunny spot near the edge of the woods. If this 
is done adults and children alike may find great 
pleasure in going out and watching these feed¬ 
ing spots, which will be regularly visited by the 
birds. The diners will soon become accustomed 
to the presence of human beings, and if one 
moves very slowly it is possible gradually to 
approach nearer and nearer to the birds, and to 
observe every detail of their form and color. 
If people generally at all appreciated the enor¬ 
mous services to the country, which are con¬ 
stantly being performed by the birds, they would 
be as anxious to feed and care for them as they 
are to feed the horses which do their hauling, or 
the cattle in their barns. It has been stated that 
the damage caused by noxious insects amounts 
each year to $800,000,000, but whatever the loss 
from that cause we may be sure that but for 
the services of the birds this great continent of 
North America would be a howling desert, for 
it would not produce food for its inhabitants, who 
would have to abandon it or starve to death. 
From all points of view it pays to feed and 
protect the birds. It is humane, it gives pleasure 
to him who does it, and above all, it is good busi¬ 
ness. 
THE APPALACHIAN-WHITE MOUNTAIN 
BILL. 
All persons interested in forestry will be grati¬ 
fied to learn that Speaker Cannon has at last 
withdrawn his opposition to the Appalachian- 
White Mountain forest bill, and that there thus 
seems a good prospect that the bill may pass. A 
public hearing on the bills was held last week 
by the House Committee on Agriculture which 
was attended by representative men from the 
South as well as from New England, and by a 
number of persons especially interested in for¬ 
estry matters. 
For a long time people in the South and in 
New England have been practically unanimous 
in favor of this project and the press of the whole 
Eastern country has been a unit for it; in fact, 
almost everyone who knew anything about it 
seemed to favor it, except Speaker Cannon, who, 
controlling the House of Representatives, was 
unwilling to let it come up. For some time, 
therefore, a good part of thif country has been 
urging, and Speaker Cannon has been opposing 
the bill. Now, however, the speaker is quoted as 
saying, I don t see how I can hold out against 
the bill. When New England and the South get 
together on a proposition it is a hard combina¬ 
tion to beat.” 
I he present bill is considerably modified from 
the form in which it passed the Senate at the last 
Congress. It is better because simpler, and has 
the approval of a large number of forestry asso¬ 
ciations, and of the Forest Service. The terri¬ 
tory proposed to be set aside comprises about 
5,000,000 acres in the South, and about 600,000 
acres in the White Mountains, and the bill car¬ 
ries an appropriation of $5,000,000. 
Up to the present time an unfortunate feature 
of our forestry system has been that its opera¬ 
tions were confined to the West, where only 
there are public lands on which forests grow. 
I he passage of this bill will make our forest re¬ 
serve policy truly national—a very great gain. 
Its passage will mean that before it is too late 
the Government will take control of one of the 
chief supplies of hardwood timber in the coun¬ 
try, and will control the sources of rivers which 
supply water power to some of the most im¬ 
portant manufacturing States. 
Our cover picture shows a typical winter scene 
in the Adirondack forest when there is a couple 
of feet of snow on the ground and the ther¬ 
mometer registers twenty or more degrees below 
zero at night. Not many open places are then 
found in the brooks by the deer, but here and 
there are spots where the water is too rapid to 
freeze, or perhaps a spring under the protecting 
foliage of a big hemlock tree, and all such places 
are visited nightly by numbers of deer, which 
make their beds in the vicinity and track up the 
snow until it resembles a sheep yard. Frank 
Baker, who loaned the picture we reproduce, 
lives alone on Beaver Lake, and his chief amuse¬ 
ment in winter is to feed the few birds that are 
abroad when the temperature is very low, and 
cut balsams for the deer when the snow is so 
deep that they cannot range far. During the 
severe winter four years ago he was actually 
followed by wild deer when he went forth with 
snowshoes and axe to assist them, and some of 
the starving animals ate so greedily of the bal¬ 
sam tops that they lay down and died in his 
presence. 
at 
The conviction of Harvey Gaylord, who was 
tried at Herkimer, N. Y., last week for selling 
timber on State land; and the trial of Charles 
A. Klock, who, it is alleged, was involved with 
him, will have a salutary effect on timber thieves 
in the Adirondacks. These men were State game 
protectors, and are said to have been acting for 
others, who equally deserve to be punished. 
