Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months. $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1910. 
VOL. LXXV.-No. 6. 
No. 127 Franklin St. New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
SOME SORROWS. 
The increased cost of living, of which we hear 
so much, bears hardly alike on rich and poor, 
sportsman and poacher, just and unjust. It 
touches us all. 
Why it now costs so much more to feed and 
clothe a family than it did ten years ago no one 
seems to know. Men of many trades and pro¬ 
fessions have vainly sought an explanation, but 
only one class appears to have found it. Poli¬ 
ticians, legislators and statesmen have discovered 
the cause—to their own satisfaction—in the fail¬ 
ure to carry far enough the principles of the 
party to which they belong. The tariff should 
be higher. There should be no tariff. Women 
should vote. Direct primaries would bring peace. 
Meantime the plain people continue to pay con¬ 
stantly higher prices for the necessaries of life. 
Sportsmen are supposed to possess fortitude, 
but even the truest sportsman may feel justified 
in squirming uneasily when—to take a familiar 
example—he is obliged to pay eight or nine 
cents per quart for milk—and water—produced 
within a few miles of his own home, for which 
he knows the producer receives only about one- 
fourth the price he pays. The farmers have 
long been grumbling over this particular out¬ 
rage—not the outrage of charging the consumer 
all that can be squeezed from him, but that of 
paying the producer a very, low price. 
A year ago there was much public outcry over 
a rise in the price of milk from eight to nine 
cents, and after a time the price was reduced 
to the former figure, but now some of the com¬ 
panies in New York declare that prices are to 
be raised again. Meantime an inquiry made by 
the Attorney-General and reported to the last 
Legislature shows one of these milk companies 
to have paid 12 per cent, dividends ever since 
its organization, while in 1909 it paid no less 
than 22 per cent, yearly, or nearly 2 per cent, a 
month. 
Excellent reasons are given for increased 
prices—the same old reason so often heard be¬ 
fore; the spring is late, the summer is dry, there 
is no fall pasturage, winter is coming on. To 
the milk companies all seasons look alike, and 
each one is used so as to add to their profits. 
There is the equally familiar tale of high prices 
paid to the farmer for his product, but he, on 
his part, proves by figures which he declares do 
not lie, that each quart of milk he sells costs 
him more than he gets for it. 4 ' 
Many people will envy the owners of stock in 
the milk company that pays such handsome divi¬ 
dends, but for our own part we are more dis¬ 
posed to envy the happy country dweller, whose 
garden produces a great variety of delicious 
food at trifling cost in cash, but at some expen¬ 
diture of toil and sweat; whose chickens and 
ducks require only reasonable care and atten¬ 
tion, and whose cows give down their milk and 
cream to be consumed by his family and not to 
be sold for a trifle to swell the profits of com¬ 
bining milk companies. 
DRY WEATHER. 
Over much of the northern United States 
there has been no rain of any consequence since 
mid-June or earlier. The few showers that have 
fallen were of brief duration and covered but 
little territory. Fields are parched and dry, 
roads deep with dust, and streams dwindling. 
So far there have been few important woods 
fires in the East, and it is not likely there will 
be during the present month unless the dry 
weather continues unabated, for there is still 
sufficient green growth in shaded places to par¬ 
tially counteract the effects of the drouth in the 
open. 
What effect the cold spring and early summer 
had on ground-nesting birds is not as yet gen¬ 
erally known, but certainly the conditions since 
early June have been favorable to them, saving 
the lack of water in the small streams and ponds. 
Forest fires are still burning at an alarming 
rate in Montana, and the Forest Service has 
been hard pressed in fighting them. Early in 
the present week advices from Montana towns 
stated that appeals had been made to citizens 
to assist in the work of saving property. The 
long continued drouth makes the work doubly 
difficult, and unless rains bring relief the fires 
will hardly be checked. 
The one grain of comfort in the situation has 
been found and taken advantage of by those 
whose vacations came in July. Fair skies, clear 
though somewhat warm days and cool nights 
have put new vigor into tired bodies and made 
life in the open a real pleasure for them. Fish¬ 
ing has seldom been more satisfactory, and from 
the salmon rivers of the Northeast, the St. Law¬ 
rence, the Delaware, the Susquehanna and other 
large waterways reports have come of success 
with game fish. Along the seashore surf casters 
and boat parties have reaped a great harvest of 
their favorite fish. Small boat parties cruising 
alongshore and on inland waters have gone their 
way in safety and comfort. Taken altogether, 
July was an ideal month for outdoor people. 
LOUISLiNA’S ADVANCE. 
It is gratifying to record the fact that the 
threatened backsliding in Louisiana did not oc¬ 
cur. Instead, the sportsmen’s interests were con¬ 
sidered by the legislators, who contented them¬ 
selves with making a few minor changes in the 
fish and game laws and in bringing about the 
consolidation of the Game and the Oyster Com¬ 
missions. 
A year ago there was a movement to abolish 
the Louisiana Game and Fish Commission. 
There were those who evidently believed this 
body was an open enemy, and that in enforcing 
the written laws it was bringing harm to the 
people who for generations had followed cus¬ 
toms which are no longer applicable to the game 
and fish situation to-day. In demanding the abo¬ 
lition of this commission they sought to have 
the game and fish laws administered by the 
parish police juries, bodies similar in many re¬ 
spects to the boards of county commissioners 
in other States. 
Louisiana sportsmen are to be congratulated 
on the steps taken toward reform. The State 
is not so situated as to call for game districts 
north and south, or more special local restric¬ 
tions than are now in force there. There is a 
tendency to work toward simplicity; to make 
one game law cover an entire State; to do away 
with complicated local provisions; to observe and 
be content with a few good laws rather than the 
many that are but half understood and are there¬ 
fore ineffective. In this way confusion and fric¬ 
tion may be avoided, and while abroad the sports¬ 
man need not consult constantly a map and a 
book giving local laws. 
Through carelessness on the part of the select¬ 
men of a Massachusetts village several hundred 
trout were killed recently. A sportsmen’s club 
placed 10,000 small trout in a brook and a large 
number of them found their way into an irriga¬ 
tion ditch leading from the brook to a farm. 
The ditch passed under a road, and rather than 
keep the culvert in repair the selectmen had the 
ditch closed at its headgate. The water dried 
up and all of the trout in it were killed. The 
sportsmen’s club was not notified until too late. 
K 
John Law Dallam’s story, “The Bitter 
Moment,” printed elsewhere in this issue, will 
appeal strongly to anglers, each of whom has, 
at some period in his career, experienced a simi¬ 
lar disappointment. There are good reasons why 
the largest fish often break away, but in this in¬ 
stance the cause was an unusual one. 
Mid-August will witness three important na¬ 
tional gatherings. In Chicago the National 
Archery Association and the National Associa¬ 
tion of Scientific Angling Clubs will hold their 
annual tournaments, while the American Canoe 
Association will hold its camp on Sugar Island, 
in the St. Lawrence River. 
