Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. (. NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 28 , I 908 . j No. 346 Broadway, New York, 
Six Months, 51.50. _____ _ 
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 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 18(3. 
A MICHIGAN GAME I.Al-V. 
' The Michigan Association, whose object is the 
■ protection of game, has called a meeting, to be 
! held in Detroit this week, the purpose of which 
is to try to simplify and codify the game and 
fish laws of the State—a most praiseworthy ob¬ 
ject. Local sportsmen’s clubs, fishing clubs and 
other similar organizations as well as individuals 
all over the State are urged to join the associa¬ 
tion and attend the meeting in the hope that in 
• 1909 the Legislature may pass a single adequate 
bill, which shall cover the fish and game of the 
State. 
Many questions are to be brought up foi dis- 
1 cussion. Some of these deal with matters on 
which there is little or no difference of opinion 
among sportsmen, but others are more intricate. 
The game warden department of the State has 
j long been complained of as subject of political 
influence. This should be changed. Among other 
things it is asked: Shall the game department 
conduct a bureau of education among the people 
of the State? Shall a rod license be exacted? 
Shall there be a gun license for small game? 
Shall spring shooting be forbidden? Shall a 
bounty be offered for the destruction of certain 
mammals, birds and fishes thought to he in¬ 
jurious? The subject of bounties has been pretty 
well settled by the investigations of the Bureau 
of Biological Survey, and the association will 
probably decide this bounty question in the nega¬ 
tive. 
Two of the questions take up the same subject 
in different wavs. One says, “Are you in favor 
of a law permitting farmers to post their lands 
and charge hunters for shooting privileges on 
them?” while the other asks, “Are you in favor 
of a law prohibiting the creating of private 
hunting and fishing preserves?’ A law pei • 
mitting the farmers to post their lands and to 
keep hunters off them, would be a law permitting 
the creation of a private hunting preserve; for 
five, ten or a hundred, neighboring farmers 
might club together and lease the shooting priv¬ 
ileges of their lands to whomsoever they chose. 
This precise thing is done in North Carolina and 
I elsewhere in the South, to the great benefit of 
land owner and gunner. As a matter of fact, 
preserves—whether private or public are of 
great benefit to the sportsmen of any section. 
Thev give places of refuge and comparative 
safety to game birds, and these birds soon learn 
where they will receive such protection, and es¬ 
pecially frequent such localities, from which they 
overflow into the adjacent country. Wherever 
such refuges exist, whether in the East or \\ cst 
or South, they result in a great increase in the 
number of birds and in much better shooting. 
The meeting which is being held, if wisely 
directed and devoted to a full discussion of the 
various points in the game law, can hardly fail 
to benefit Michigan and her residents. Few of 
her sister States are so well provided with game 
and fish as is this great commonwealth, and 
among her citizens are numbered some of the 
best sportsmen in the land. We are hopeful that 
good judgment, discretion and temperance will 
mark the coming ^meeting. 
TO STARVE SOME DAY. 
For a number of years past, game protectors 
and those interested in natural things have been 
urging on the Interior Department and Congress 
that a modest appropriation should be niade for 
the growing of hay in the Yellowstone Park, to 
be kept for use in feeding elk and other wild 
animals in case of hard winters when the natural 
food of the game shall become inaccessible. A 
good many years ago Major Pitcher of his own 
motion irrigated and sowed to alfalfa a flat 
near Gardiner, feeding the hay to antelope in 
winter, and the result was an extraordinary in¬ 
crease in the number of antelope which wintered 
in the park. 
Not only were the antelope fed from the crops 
grown on this flat, but so too, were the moun¬ 
tain sheep and the deer in the Gardiner canon 
and at Fort Yellowstone. The great bulk of the 
elk, however, are unprovided for, and in ordi¬ 
nary seasons can get along well enough without 
hay, though even now they sometimes come and 
break down the fences about the stacks to eat 
the hay put up for the smaller animals. 
Now we are told that Dr. Wm. O. Stillman of 
the American Humane Association hopes to se¬ 
cure from Congress an appropriation which shall 
make things easier for the grass-eating animal-* 
of that region. He has received a number of 
letters from people interested in the protection 
of elk and other helpless members of the deer 
family in the Northwest. The story is an ancient 
one and in another column we print extracts 
from editorials printed in Forest and Stream 
a few years ago, and also one of the letters which 
Dr. Stillman has received. The extracts from 
Forest and Stream set forth the dangers \ ery 
plainly. 
We wish Dr. Stillman better luck in carrying 
out this good work than has ever attended the 
efforts of the game protectors of whom Mr. 
Roosevelt and Mr. Pinchot are among the most 
earnest. 
NEW YORK ACQUIRES MT. MARCY. 
The State Forest Preserve board has just 
purchased for the State park an important tract 
of 3,500 acres of land in the Adirondacks. This 
tract includes Mount Marey and some of its 
neighboring peaks, and was bought from the 
Racquette Falls Land Company at about $8 an 
acre, the total cost being $28,000. The tract is 
heavily timbered, and its purchase by the State 
preserves this timber from being cut off and the 
lumber converted into pulp. It is on the slopes 
of Mount Marey that the Pludson River rises. 
The acquisition by the State of Adirondack 
timber lands has progressed so gradually that k 
is difficult to realize the real importance of this 
great work of preserving the forests, of the 
mountain region, and only after traversing the 
various waterways and tramping through the 
woods year after year can one appreciate what 
is being done for our outdoor people. 
The taking of the first shad from the Hudson 
River is regarded as an event of importance, not 
only to the fishermen themselves, hut to all per¬ 
sons who look forward with eagerness to the 
actual signs of the approach of the vernal sea 
son. This shad was a six-pound female, and was 
taken off Croton Point, in the Tappan Zee. 
* 
It seems that the attempts that have so far 
been made to capture chamois in the Swiss Alps 
for shipment to the Yellowstone Park have not 
proved successful, and it is doubted whether 
those animals that survive the fright of capture 
will live through the long journey. Possibly 
young chamois, if first given an opportunity to 
become accustomed to the. presence of humans, 
may he successfully handled. 
*» 
Tn 1907 there were received at Boston and 
Gloucester, Mass., i 9 i. 57 t .752 pounds of sea fish, 
the total value of which was $5,263,103. Ot 
these the Boston market received 88,1x1,336 
pounds. In the previous year Boston’s receipts 
were about the same number, or 89,693,370 
pounds, while but 80,707.840 pounds were landed 
at Gloucester. All of these fish were taken by 
American fishing vessels. 
With the near approach of the fishing season 
it may not be out of place to reprint one of the 
paragraphs that appeared in Forest and Stream 
in the ’90s: 
Send us a postal card report of your luck, your part¬ 
ner’s luck, your neighbor's luck, your father-in-law s 
luck, and—her luck. 
Fishing resorts are no fewer now than at that 
time, but the best waters are unknown to many, 
and by exchange of experiences, through this 
medium, many anglers will be made happy 
