Sentiment and the Senses. 
For years I have been reading instructions 
about the proper method of conducting a hunt¬ 
ing party, or of camping for rest and recreation 
on the shores of some peaceful lake. Nothing 
has surprised me more than a peculiarity of 
these writings, which show a vein of economy 
parsimony—even stinginess—which seems to run 
through them all. They suggest that the proper 
thing for breakfast is fat bacon and coffee, and 
all appear to imply that the height of a hunter’s 
ambition should be starvation and self denial. 
This may be very well if a man has been living 
in some large city with a full purse, the markets 
of the world at his call, and no idea of self-con¬ 
trol. If he has grown unduly fat frpm high liv¬ 
ing and generous wine, if his system has soaked 
up so much comfort and luxury that he has lost all 
desire for the good things of life, why then, per¬ 
haps, a little starvation and a hard bed may be 
helpful to his physical and spiritual being alike, 
and a trip where he is nourished by bacon, mush 
and scenery may teach him to appreciate again 
some of the luxuries of life. Will Carlton 
says: “If you want to make a man appreciate 
heaven, first give him a touch of hell.” This 
seems to be the idea of many of the writers of 
fiction or of hunting and camping stories. 
A man who has to do hard physical work 
needs to be well nourished,' whether he be a 
hunter, an old-time horse thief ahead of his 
pursuers, or a Montana train robber who must 
ride far and fast and rope a fresh horse every 
hour, turning loose the worn out one, and must 
keep his system in shape to give a tough old 
sheriff a fight, or to ride all day and all night. 
A guide who all summer has ranged along on 
the ragged edge of hard luck, and who hires out 
to a tourist with a literary grub list experience, 
looks at the outfit with sad heart and discouraged 
air. When a man starts on a trip lean and tired, 
gets up at 4 a. m., builds fires, hunts horses, helps 
cook breakfast, lugs in a cord of wood for the 
evening camp-fire, saddles horses—after running 
them down a few times—and does all this while 
the advocate of a small commissary peacefully 
sleeps the healthy beauty sleep of a fat man on 
a banting diet, he needs grub that will put vim 
in his body and go in his legs. 
The mess wagon of a good cow outfit carries a 
bill of fare that would make many a gooH 
restaurant landlord feel envious. Hunters, trap¬ 
pers or prospectors load their pack horses with 
all sorts of good things to eat and then pile on 
top a large bed of soft wool blankets. They 
know that if they are to stand up with their 
work they must live well and sleep warm and 
comfortably. Only the rankest kind of tender¬ 
foot attempts to live on scant rations and sleep 
in a single blanket. 
I believe if you purpose to go on a satisfactory 
camping trip you should take with you the best 
food you can afford, and take all you need and 
then some more. T am tired of hearing of coffee, 
bacon and a Http flour as the food supply for 
such a trip. Lewis and Clark in 1804-06, with 
boats to transport their supplies and the best 
hunters on earth to provide, ate dog, then more 
dog, and sometimes dog straight. How thought¬ 
less a man of the present day must be who ex¬ 
pects to live on the game he kills while on a 
hunting and camping trip. The game is about 
gone; through lack of experience and training, 
the hunter has lost most of his old-time cunning; 
the sportsman who hacks a trip of the present 
day with coin, is often a vile shot, and a hungry 
guide has to stand and hold his fire, while a fat 
mountain sheep or bull elk runs into the next 
county and, so far as they are concerned, is 
gone forever. 
I have camped and hunted with some men who 
authorized me to purchase all I thought we 
needed, and a list of the good things taken along 
would have surprised the king of the most abso¬ 
lute and prosperous monarchy on earth a hun¬ 
dred years ago. Some men gave me free run 
of the largest grocery houses of the East, so 
that I could order a month in advance and have 
the best of the world’s market. When a man 
with an appetite like that of a grizzly on coming 
out in the spring can sit down before a pack 
cover on the clean dry ground, spread with such 
dainties as I have ordered he ought to be happy. 
About him on all sides the high mountains are 
towering, snow-capped, the cool mountain stream 
rolls at his feet; in the meadow before the camp, 
the horses are grazing among the wild flowers 
and bunch grass. Just as the sun is sinking in 
the west and the clouds turning to purple and 
gold, such a man may sit down to a bill of fare 
that includes the choicest coffee from South 
America and Java, sugar-cured ham from Iowa, 
potatoes from the granite lands of Montana, 
butter from the best dairies of the Coast city, 
cream in cans from New York, olives from Italy, 
pineapples and oranges from the South Sea and 
California, sun-kissed fruits from the hills and 
valleys of the Golden West, dates of Persia, figs, 
cheese, spices and condiments from a dozen 
foreign countries—if he sits down, I say, to all 
this, and if to this be added the possibilities for 
to-morrow of a few grouse, a string of trout, a 
fat mountain sheep, bull elk, hilly goat or grizzly 
hear, I am sure that this man feels better, will 
live longer and will be happier than any one can 
who attempts to.camp and live on a tramp’s diet. 
There are times when a scant commissary is 
inevitable. You may stay out longer than in¬ 
tended and run short; you may lose a pack 
horse with much needed supplies; and the 
chances are ten to one that you will eat double 
what you supposed you would, and at the end 
of the trip you may come in on scant rations. 
That is right; that is unavoidab’e; no one will 
complain ; but do not start out short of grub. 
A hungry dog hunts hard, and a lean and 
hungry guide, packer, horse wrangler or cook 
may do much work, but he is very likely to be 
crank}- and may hurt your feelings by profanity, 
and by the emphatic advice to the trouble hunt¬ 
ing pack horse. 
If you live on generous fare, in the years to 
come the guides will rise up and call you 
blessed. The cook will tell for many a season 
how hard he tried to please a man whose soul 
was filled with the milk of human kindness. 
Packers and horse wranglers will wipe a tear 
from their cheeks, take a pull at a chunk of 
Climax and swear that you are the salt of the 
earth, and when you take a last look at the for¬ 
lorn outfit assembled to see you take a Pullman 
for the land of the rising sun, a great sigh will 
arise from many breasts, for they know that they 
will not look upon your like again. J. B. M. 
Roosevelt on Conservation. 
In his speech last week at Denver, Col. Roose¬ 
velt spoke on the “Conservation of Forests East 
and West,” in language which will appeal strongly 
to all business people and to all lovers of outdoor 
things. Among other things, he said: 
“In the matter of conservation I heartily ap¬ 
prove of State action where under our form of 
government the State and the State only has the 
power to act. I cordially join with those who 
desire to see the State within its own sphere take 
the most advanced position in regard to the 
whole matter of conservation. I have taken ex¬ 
actly this attitude in my own State of New York. 
Where the State alone had power to act I have 
done all I could to get it to act in the most ad¬ 
vanced manner; and where the nation could act 
I have done all I could to get national action in 
the same direction. Unfortunately in the East we 
have in this matter paid the penalty of not hav¬ 
ing our forest land under national control, and 
the penalty has been severe. Most of the States 
-—although they are old States—have not pro¬ 
tected their forests, each failing to act by itself, 
because the action was really the common con¬ 
cern of all, and where action is the common con¬ 
cern of all, experience has shown that it can only 
be profitably undertaken by the National Govern¬ 
ment. 
‘As a result of the impossibility of getting such 
wise action by the several State Governments 
in the East, we are doing our best to get national 
legislation under which the National Government, 
at the expense of millions of dollars, shall under¬ 
take to do as regards the Appalachians and 
White Mountains of the East what it is now do¬ 
ing in the Rocky Mountains here out West. It 
would be both a calamity and an absurdity for 
the National Government now to do in the West 
the very thing that at a heavy pecuniary cost it 
is trying to undo in the East. By actual experi¬ 
ence in the East we have found to our cost that 
the nation and not the several States can best 
guard the interests of the people in the matter 
of the forests and the waters, and that if it fails 
to attempt this duty at the outset it will later on 
have to pay heavily in order to be allowed to take 
up the work, which, because it is done so late, 
cannot be so well done as if it had been begun 
earlier. 
The Forest and Stream may he obtained from 
any nezvsdeam■ on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
