Dec. io, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
935 
A Lesson in Woodcraft. 
There is a code of principles, gleaned from 
experience, peculiar to every walk in life. Every 
man to his own bent; the sailor for the sea, the 
plowman for the field, and the woodsman for 
the woods. Each knows his own circumstances 
and surroundings best. As opportunity offers, 
familiarize yourself with the sophistry of the 
walk in which your preference lies. 
Neither sea nor sky presents more varying 
moods than do the woods. He who plans to be 
abroad in them much of the time throughout the 
year must be prepared to meet wide extremes 
and diverse conditions. 
When Caesar, the great general of early days, 
set out against the Germans, and ordered them 
to depart from Gaul, their leader, Ariovistus, re¬ 
plied to his challenge to retire by inquiring if he 
knew that he was marching against a body of 
men who had not slept under a roof for four¬ 
teen years. Woodsmanship was their chief claim 
to valor, and anyone familiar with the character 
of the Germans to-day -well knows- that their 
ancestry could not have been 'inferior. 
Look, too, at the Green Mountain Boys, of a 
more recent age; woodsmen through and through, 
before whose immortal challenge, “In the name 
of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Con¬ 
gress,” Ticonderoga fell without a single gun¬ 
shot. Surely, woodcraft engenders courage, 
hardihood and daring. 
The sailor, with nothing but the boundless sea 
about him and the stars above, is called upon to 
shape his course with a self-reliance and absence 
of fear which is admirable, but what of the man 
who, with rifle and pack, sets out into the woods 
alone, entirely cut off from any dependence upon 
his fellow man, the mosses on the trees his com¬ 
pass, and the skyline his only chart? It is up¬ 
lifting and inspiring to come in contact with, or 
even to contemplate the lives of, such men; or 
to live for a time under some of the same cir¬ 
cumstances which combined to make them what 
they were. 
The woodsman was a type of our early na¬ 
tional life which should be preserved and re¬ 
membered. Just as the early Pilgrims are now 
immortal, so the woodsmen of America should 
be also. 
It makes for manhood and character to know 
how to build one’s house in a single day, and to 
set the foibles and refinements of luxury and 
ease at defiance and live simply close to nature 
as our primitive ancestors must have done. It 
is a homecoming, indeed, a return to first prin¬ 
ciples, such as we have never known before. 
How to be at home in the woods is an art 
worth knowing, and they who really understand 
it are every day growing fewer and fewer. It 
is fast becoming a lost art, but there always will 
be a few who keep its hearth fires burning. 
Some persons, if by mishap they fall into the 
water, immediately drown, while others, who 
know how to swim and are more at home in this 
treacherous element, are able to keep themselves 
afloat till succor is at hand. It is precisely the 
same in the woods. Some upon being lost in 
the wilderness perish of hunger and sheer alarm, 
while others, more familiar with woodland ways 
and the characteristics of plants and herbs, may 
keep body and soul together until rescued, or 
until they make their way to safety unassisted. 
Anyone who has ever watched an Indian, at 
home in the woods as he always is, replenish his 
larder when game and provisions utterly failed 
him, has learned a lesson not soon to be for¬ 
gotten. It may have been in the dead of winter, 
with everything frozen and snow bound, yet on 
the bank of a creek perhaps he cut through the 
thick ice, and with bared arm tore from the bed 
beneath succulent roots which could be rendered 
edible by boiling. Or he gathered nuts, mayhap, 
from beneath the snow, or from a squirrel’s nest 
discovered by chance and prepared them for 
food by boiling and baking. 
The biographer of Daniel Webster relates that 
when he was a young man at college his father 
wrote requesting him to call upon an old ac¬ 
quaintance of his boyhood, who was living in 
a retired section not very far from the college. 
Webster did so, and remained so late that his 
host was under the necessity of inviting him to 
remain to supper, though he appeared to do so 
with much reluctance. In relating the incident 
in his letters to his father, the young student 
details that at length he discovered the cause of 
this hesitancy. The family were reduced to ex¬ 
treme want at the time, and the evening meal 
consisted of nothing but edible herbs and greens 
gathered in the woods about and boiled. But he 
describes the dish as quite palatable. And well 
he might, for it was evidently gathered and pre¬ 
pared by a thorough woodsman, one who well 
understood how to make good use of the sub¬ 
stitutes nature provides in seasons when provis¬ 
ions are scant. 
The fundamental principles of woodcraft con¬ 
sist in the art of being able to make oneself 
comfortable in the wilderness, and of supplying 
one’s immediate wants with the materials at 
hand. He who understands this is never at a 
loss for comfort and good cheer in the woods. 
Let storms rage and winds roar, he has fuel and 
shelter always at hand; he laughs at-the war¬ 
fare of the elements, and the moaning of the 
gale in the evergreens is sweet music in his ears. 
Does the snow sift down through the treetops, 
burying all beneath its soft mantle of white? 
With joy he welcomes its coming, since it buf 
reveals to him on its spotless page the secrets of 
the wilderness about him, directing him where 
to look for game, fur and venison. He who 
learns woodcraft learns to live by those princi¬ 
ples which served the race for centuries before 
the refinements of the arts and sciences were 
known or thought of. Would it not be well to 
impart some of the simple, sincere living of the 
woods into the feverish and extravagant living 
of the present? Surely, some knowledge of 
woodcraft, even though small, would be a good 
and wholesome thing for every man to-day. 
Rupe Barmby. 
A Silver Fox? 
A press dispatch announces the capture near 
Temple, Me., on the last days of November of 
a silver fox. The account is as follows: 
Charles Huntington has received $800 for the 
skin of a silver gray fox that he caught in one 
of his traps recently. The skin was far more 
valuable that! the average run of silver grays, 
though even these are extremely rare. After 
Mr. Huntington notified the fur buyers, and one 
offered $600, Huntington was suspicious that it 
might be worth more, so he hesitated about ac¬ 
cepting. The offer was raised to $700 and finally 
to $800. 
Wildfowl Raising—Preserves. 
Omaha, Neb., Dec. 3. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: That the propagation of wild game, 
especially ducks and geese, is to become a large 
industry in this country ere the lapse of many 
more years is as inevitable as death or taxes. 
The experiment has been made in various sec¬ 
tions and found thoroughly practical. Wildfowl 
farms and game preserves and sanctuaries are 
springing up everywhere, and especially in Ne¬ 
braska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. 
At Erickson Falls a rancher by the name of 
Walford is having the most flattering success 
rearing mallards and spoonbills, and at Fuller¬ 
ton, or near that town, on the Middle Loup, are 
several incipient ducking farms. 
Of course in starting an industry of this kind 
it is first necessary to get your ducks for breed¬ 
ing purposes, and this Walford did by gather¬ 
ing up crippled birds where he could find them. 
At many places along the Loup live mallards 
are used for decoys, as are wild geese, most of 
which were birds that had been wing-tipped, 
picked up and carefully nurtured until the wound 
had healed, by the gunners who shot them. 
Many birds are secured every season in this 
manner, and after having one wing clipped they 
are turned loose with tame ducks. Sometimes 
they wander away, but generally take most kind¬ 
ly to their new environment and mingle natu¬ 
rally with their domestic kindred. 
When the laying season approaches the tame 
drakes are cooped up by themselves, and the 
next broods are one-half wild blood. The sec¬ 
ond year the wild drakes are permitted to run 
with the half wild ducks only and the wild blood 
increases. This is the system practiced by Wal¬ 
ford, and he has many fine specimens now in 
which but meagre traces of the domestic blood is 
discernible, but they are full of their wild ways, 
keen alertness and agile movement. They are 
great layers and most successful brooders. 
They are fond of feeding in the early hours 
of morning and late hours of the evening, and 
spend much of the open daytime in the rice and 
reeds of the lake on which they have been reared. 
There is a much more extensive duck farm 
than this Nebraska one at Marine, Ill., where the 
industry is carried on most extensively. They 
have a large number of immense incubators and 
artificially heated brooding houses, and the birds 
begin to lay much earlier in the spring than the 
wild free ones do. Later on they are released 
into runs, whose borders are thick with lettuce, 
watercress, pepper grass and wild parsnip, of 
which these semi-domestic birds are ravenously 
fond. These runs are kept scrupulously clean, 
being supplied with cold, fresh water by h)'diau- 
lic pumping machines daily. The birds are a 
great improvement over the domestic species, are 
larger, more agile and healthful. They are also 
much superior on the table, being difficult to dis¬ 
tinguish from the pure wild bird. They are also 
greater layers and better qualified to bring forth 
a brood and take care of it. 
Fifty ducks mated with ten drakes during the 
laying season produce from S’ 5 00 7 > 5 °° e §S s > 
with a wonderfully high percentage of fertility; 
even more so, it is said, than in their native 
wilds. Having been battling with the elements 
and countless more destructive enemies, fighting 
constantly for a brief existence, they seem to 
thrive astonishingly under this restraint. The 
