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Forest and Stream 
Terms. $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. I NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 4 , 1908 . | No. 346 Broadway. New York 
Six Months, $1.50. * ___ 
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 li ork. 
the object op 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. 
|i • SPRING BRUSH FIRES. 
1 
Every year about this time, a danger whose 
seriousness few people seem to comprehend 
.threatens injury to landowners and sportsmen. 
iThe damage done to the individual is perhaps 
not large, but in the aggregate the loss to the 
country is very great. 
In March and April, when dead grass and 
weeds stand thick in the old lots, and dry leaves 
lie heavy in woods or in fields grown up to 
.bushes, fires are started and often run for a 
; great distance. Such fires burn the leaves and 
I all smaller branches that cover the ground, heat 
and scorch the bark of low shrubbery and young 
■trees, and thus destroy the saplings and seed¬ 
lings which should constitute the forests of the 
future. The young trees so burned may not be 
absolutely killed, but their useful life is ended. 
! Even though they may live and put forth leaves 
for many years, yet because the bark has been 
killed partly around their stems, their growth is 
, stunted and they never produce timber of any 
' value. If by chance a thrifty landowner at con¬ 
siderable expense has set out a plantation of 
young trees, a fire running through them de¬ 
stroys many and injures others. 
Besides destroying all the young growth there, 
the burning of the leaves heaped up in the f01 - 
ests totally unfits large tracts for habitation by 
many birds. Ground nesting species will not 
breed on recently burned land- When the fire 
extends into the swamps and along their edges, 
many woodcock are prevented from nesting in 
their .usual haunts, and if the fire comes in 
spring or early summer, woodcock, partridges 
and quail may be killed by the flames. In some 
States of the Middle West fire has been an im¬ 
portant agent in the extermination of the prairie 
chicken; the mother birds and their eggs being 
destroyed by the wholesale in the spring prairie 
I fires. Not a few railroads running over the 
1 plains fire the prairies and burn off the range 
to the great loss of the owners of live stock. 
These fires are set in three principal ways: 
(1) by railroads, sparks from whose locomotives 
are carried long distances and fire the dry grass; 
(2) by landowners, in the extraordinary belief 
, that they are benefiting their land; and (3) by 
mischievous and thoughtless boys, who may set 
! leaves on fire, just to see them burn. 
In some States locomotive engines are by law 
obliged to have their smoke stacks screened in 
order to arrest the sparks; but as these screens 
easily become more or less clogged and thus in¬ 
terfere with the draft, they are often removed 
by the engineers, and then great sparks, often 
as large as a man's fist, may come from the 
smokestack to be whirled away by the wind and 
do untold damage. Of roads near New York, 
the Long Island Railroad, the New r York, New 
Haven & Hartford Railroad, and some roads 
running out from Jersey City and Hoboken, are 
serious offenders in this respect. A landowner 
who fires his fields or wood lots under the im¬ 
pression that he is benefiting them is acting al¬ 
together against his own interests. Instead of 
helping his land, he is wasting much good fer¬ 
tilizing material which now goes up in smoke, 
and, besides that, he is killing off his young 
trees. The lads who fire fields or leaves for 
“fun” may easily be stopped by pointing out to 
them the possible injury that they may cause. 
No one is more amenable to reason than the 
small boy, if only he can be made to understand 
that his course is foolish or wrong. His trouble 
is thoughtlessness. 
We are familiar with not a few tracts of land 
burned over in spring in recent years, places 
where young forests had started, but where now 
there is only a blackened waste, with here and 
there a bunch of useless weeds. One such tract 
on the Long Island Railroad was burned over 
eight years ago, and since then nothing has 
grown on it. A little swamp in Connecticut, 
where in old times a pair of woodcock always 
bred, burned over three years ago, has never 
sheltered a woodcock’s nest since. 
It is well worth the while of every reader of 
Forest and Stream to do what may lie in his 
power to prevent—this spring and every spiing • 
the setting of such brush fires. If he can pro¬ 
tect only a few acres from being burned over 
he will have deserved well of his neighbors. 
— 
STANDARDS OF SPORTSMANSHIP. 
The National Association of Scientific Ang¬ 
ling Clubs is to be congratulated on the person¬ 
nel of the committee on standard of sportsman¬ 
ship, recently appointed by its president; and on 
the personnel, as well, of that other committee 
from the same organization, the national com¬ 
mittee on protection, propagation and legisla¬ 
tion. The members of these committees are 
widelv distributed over those parts of our coun¬ 
try where the best fishing and shooting aic 
found; they are in constant touch with the act¬ 
ual workers in the cause for which they are 
laboring; they are familiar with actual condi¬ 
tions afield and afloat; and their influence, as 
well as any action they may take, will be felt. 
The ethics of the conservative sportsman and 
angler are not well understood everywhere, and 
the gospel, of sane and reasonable sport should 
ever be poured into willing ears. It is some¬ 
times too difficult to convince the thoughtless one 
that he must obey the written laws when he is far 
away from game wardens and justices’ offices, 
but still more difficult to so impress him with 
a love for all natural objects that he will of bis 
own volition forbear to commit those offenses 
against the unwritten laws which are odious to 
all good sportsmen. 
There are abundant opportunities for effective 
work for this national committee on sportsman¬ 
ship. Its members, acting as missionaries, while 
on their fishing and other outings, can and no 
doubt will make converts, and these in turn will 
assist in spreading the doctrine of better stand¬ 
ards of sportsmanship. 
“RODMAKING FOR BEGINNERS.” 
The series bearing this caption, which ap¬ 
peared in the columns of Forest and Stream 
recently, will be issued in book form during 
April by the Forest and Stream Publishing Com¬ 
pany. Judging from the favorable comments on 
these papers that have been received, and the 
fact that a number of the articles have been re¬ 
printed in English papers, it seejns that the book 
will be welcomed by the anglers of the English- 
speaking world; and that although primarily in¬ 
tended for young anglers, some of the veterans 
will find it a useful reference book. 
In a manual of this sort the temptation to pad 
its chapters with all the formulae, systems and 
methods ever heard of is very great, but Mr. 
Frazer has adhered strictly to a simple plan, in 
order that the beginner can follow each step in 
rodmaking to a practical conclusion. Other 
papers, intended for the beginner as well as the 
more advanced worker, will, from time to time, 
appear in these columns, and will be published 
as Volume II. of this series. This second 
volume will be much broader in scope and will 
deal with the various subjects on which the 
young angler seeks up-to-date enlightenment. 
Senator Frelinghuysen s bill to amend the 
game laws of New Jersey by abolishing spring 
shooting and summer woodcock shooting has 
been withdrawn, the session being so far ad¬ 
vanced that there seems no possibility of bring¬ 
ing it to a vote. Flowever, the Senate has ap¬ 
pointed a committee to investigate the game con¬ 
ditions for the State, and to recommend such 
legislation as may be necessary to prevent the 
further depletion of the game supply and to 
provide for its increase. This committee is to 
consist of Senator^ Colby and Harrison, Prof. 
Phillips, of Princeton University, and Mr. Geo. 
Batten, the president of the New Jersey Asso¬ 
ciation for the Protection and Propagation of 
Game. During the recess the committee will in¬ 
vestigate the whole subject and will report to 
the Legislature at its next session. It is likely 
that any legislation reported by so able a com¬ 
mittee will be approved by the Legislature. 
