Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. | 
Six Months. $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 20 , 1910 . 
I VOL. LXXV.—No. 8. 
1 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. 
BURNING UP THE FOREST. 
Forest fires are still burning in the States of 
Washington, Idaho and Montana. Vast amounts 
of timber are being destroyed, towns are threat¬ 
ened and an army of men is working, in many 
divisions, to try to check the fires. The depart¬ 
ments of War, Agriculture and the Interior are 
combining to meet the threatening conditions, 
and troops, the Forest Service and details from 
the Indian Service are doing what they can. 
The Flathea'd Indian Reservation, the Coeur 
d'Alene Forest Reserve and Glacier National 
Park are burning. There are fires in Washing¬ 
ton. The situation is grave. 
Even assuming that no towns shall be de¬ 
stroyed, and there shall be no loss of life, the 
loss of property—-public and private — is very 
great, and it is important that the lesson of these 
fires should not be wasted this time, as have the 
lessons of so many previous similar conflagra¬ 
tions. 
More important than to learn why these fires 
have occurred is to make preparations against 
their recurrence. The autumnal fires which oc¬ 
cur in the Atlantic States are before long likely 
to be measurably prevented by the employment 
of oil as fuel in railroad locomotive engines. Ef¬ 
forts should be made to induce all railroads in 
the West also to employ oil as fuel, as some are 
already doing. 
Most important of all is the organization in 
the Forest Service of an active fire fighting 
brigade. Such a brigade can hardly be estab¬ 
lished without larger appropriations for the 
1 'orest Service. It has long been known that 
the organization of a considerable forest force, 
properly organized and drilled, would do much 
to put an end to these annual forest fires, or to 
stop those which start. Such fires are unknown 
in Old World countries where scientific forestry 
is practiced. Yet Congress continues to pursue 
the hand-to-mouth policy of providing funds in¬ 
adequate to the needs of the service. 
On the other hand, it is not certain that 
the forest Service always does its part. Its 
rangers are sometimes reported to be inefficient, 
and to fail quite completely to patrol their dis¬ 
tricts and to do their duty. Such men should 
be replaced by others. 1 hey would be were their 
derelictions known. For its own credit the 
Forest Service is more interested in this even 
than the taxpayers. 
SHOOTING COST IN BRITAIN. 
For many years now we have been hearing 
complaints of the scarcity of game and the in¬ 
creased cost of shooting, and from the people 
who make such complaints we often hear com¬ 
parisons drawn between the shooting here and 
that in England, which is said to be so much 
better than what we know, and where there are 
abundant birds. People who voice these com¬ 
plaints often do so very thoughtlessly, not re¬ 
alizing the widely different conditions which 
exist in England and in America, and not re¬ 
alizing either that if some residents of Great 
Britain have good shooting, they also pay for 
it at a figure which would stagger the average 
American citizen. 
In the Old World are large estates, ranging in 
size from hundreds to thousands of acres—Es¬ 
tates from which the public is excluded. Game 
killed bj r a trespasser becomes the property of 
the owner of the land, and the trespasser is 
liable to a heavy penalty. Vast sums of money 
are expended in wages and material for the pur¬ 
pose of hand-rearing the game on an estate and 
protecting it from all enemies. 
In America we have many small holdings, 
often very much less than a hundred acres, and 
over this property the general public feels that 
its rights to wander are as clear as if it owned 
the land. Here pretty much every man and boy 
owns a gun, and too many of them believe that 
the privilege of killing living things endures the 
whole year round. 
In Britain there are always many shootings 
to lease, and some of the figures drawn from the 
advertisements which offer them are suggestive 
enough. A fine mansion, with a moor on which 
may be killed 1,700 grouse, twenty stags, some 
small game with some fishing, leases for $10,000. 
A large lodge with the privilege of taking seventy 
stags, 800 grouse, a certain amount of smaller 
game and fishing may be had for $6,000. A 
smaller lodge, with 1,600 grouse and the usual 
smaller game and fishing can be had for $4,500. 
When the bag is as small as 300 grouse, 700 par¬ 
tridges, 400 wild pheasants and 160 snipe, the 
rent is only $2,500, and so it goes with diminish¬ 
ing rents and constantly decreasing bags, until 
for a rental of $1,000 one may kill 160 grouse, 
five stags, and at last comes down to a shooting- 
privilege for $500, which covers seven stags and 
forty grouse, and where the tenant has to live 
at a hotel. 
Here is a wide range of choice and one 
adapted to many purses, but places such as these 
would be quite out of the reach of the average 
hard working American—who has two weeks’ 
vacation and not too many dollars to spend on 
it—even if he found himself in Britain. The 
item 'of rent is only a small part of the cost of 
such shooting; the place must be kept up with 
servants, means of getting about, no doubt lib¬ 
eral tips, and of course ordinary subsistence. To 
the ordinary bread winner who is fond of shoot¬ 
ing, such cost would be prohibitory. It seems 
likely then that, except for the well to do and 
their guests, shooting in Great Britain may be 
as difficult to secure as it is in America. 
One of the exhibits at the Iowa State Fair, 
to be held in the autumn, will be a collection of 
live game and fish native to or thriving in the 
State of Iowa. Game Warden Lincoln is pre¬ 
paring the exhibit, which is intended to amuse 
and instruct adults as well as young people. 
Such an exhibit was shown early this month 
in Fargo, at the North Dakota State Fair. It 
was jointly prepared by the Game and Fish 
Commissions, and among the live game were 
sandhill cranes, deer, black bear, foxes and 
coyotes. Game fish were displayed, as were also 
numerous mounted specimens. The popular in¬ 
terest in the exhibit was all that could have 
been expected. 
* 
Notwithstanding the fact that this year spring- 
rains were abundant, officials of the State of New 
York are complaining greatly of the fact that the 
streams are everywhere low. This is explained 
as due to a succession of three dry years, which 
has resulted in the draining away of the under¬ 
ground water which has not been replaced by 
adequate precipitation. Much of the country has 
been deprived of its forests, and heavy rains or 
melting snows at once run off the surface of the 
ground, instead of being held and permitted to 
soak into it. 
et 
T he famous Thompson Lake controversy is 
proceeding. It is now before Judge Humphrey 
in the United States Circuit Court. On one 
side are numerous citizens and the Fishers’ and 
Hunters’ Association of Central Illinois; on the 
other the Thompson Lake Club. The latter de¬ 
nies the contention that while it owns the land 
under the lake, it has no right to control the 
water, and the court will decide whether or not 
it can enforce the laws as to trespass and fishing- 
in preserves. 
»». 
In view of the recent losses through forest 
fires elsewhere, it is not now so difficult to com¬ 
pel companies operating in the Adirondacks to 
burn oil as fuel in their locomotives. A hear¬ 
ing by the Forest, Fish and Game Commission 
will be held in Albany on Aug. 22, when the 
companies cited to appear will be required to 
show cause why they should not be compelled 
to burn oil. 
