Dec. 31, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
1059 
Deer Hounding Again, or Not ? 
Minerva, N. Y., Dec. 17.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: There is more to be said about the 
accidents of which we have lately heard so much. 
The shortened season has had the effect of 
crowding the hunters into the woods, whereas 
when we had a ten weeks’ season there were 
comparatively few in the woods at one time. 
In their efforts to escape from one hunter the 
deer would run, perhaps right into the scent 
of another, and men were constantly coming 
upon other parties of hunters because the time 
when we might hunt deer legally had been so 
shortened that tourists and natives alike were 
obliged to make the most of it. The short sea¬ 
son, only a few days on Long Island, was in 
like manner responsible for the long chapter of 
casualties happening there every recurring deer 
season. The deer increased to their present 
abundance under a ten-weeks’ season, because 
men were not so anxious to hunt them when 
they had plenty of time. Now most of us go 
out after deer eagerly when the season opens, 
only to meet many other men on the same 
errand, and if we are not careful to know just 
what we are shooting at, someone may get hurt. 
It is a wonder that more men are not killed than 
there are. 
The resident hunting license law was a thing 
thoroughly well hated by all, or almost all of 
us; even those who,se official duty it was to see 
it enforced. None of us love it. Some of the 
hot-headed ones who had no idea of how to 
reach the law-making power started a fire cru¬ 
sade with the avowed purpose to “burn out the 
whole Adirondacks” instead of uniting in a legal 
and orderly effort by petition for a change in 
the law. We opposed and resisted them, and 
fought the fires. The orderly and law-abiding 
among us had to stand, as it were, between two 
fires. This is the true story of how we came to 
have so many forest fires up here a couple of 
years ago. I was here then, heard the talk, 
helped fight some of the fires, and I know. 
The native Adirondacker looks on this gun 
license business as being but legalized black¬ 
mail. I think so, too. We are not told what is 
done with the money collected from us for 
resident licenses, only that a year back there 
was upward of $150,000 collected from us in 
that way. “Somebody’s graft” is what most of 
us think about it. Not a man here, however, 
but says that if said money were to be expended 
in the counties where it was raised, half of it 
for restocking with fish and birds, the other to 
help pay the salaries of faithful game protectors 
and fire patrolmen, they would gladly pay a 
direct tax for that purpose, because they, and 
the State at large, would be greatly benefitted 
thereby. 
The destruction of permanent camps contem¬ 
plated by the law is a great mistake, the law it¬ 
self notwithstanding. A man who had a log- 
camp on State land or anywhere else was al¬ 
ways most careful to prevent the kindling of 
fires.or from having fires break out which might 
endanger his camp or that of anyone else. In¬ 
deed, at the Kettle Mountain fire, in the Hunt- 
ley Pond region, a place much visited by tourists, 
the large camps of Callahan and Mitchell were 
a great convenience while fighting the fire. There 
were necessarily a good many men there, Kettle 
Mountain was in a splendid piece of deer coun¬ 
try, and the number of the townsmen were 
heavily reinforced by hunters, who rendered effi¬ 
cient service in checking and quenching the fire, 
and most of them without being paid for it. 
Forty or more men made Callahan’s camp their 
headquarters at that time, under the auspices of 
the proprietor himself, and it was in great meas¬ 
ure owing to such facilities as these that we 
stopped the fire as easily as we did. The law 
should in some way be amended to permit per¬ 
manent camps on State land in a way which 
cannot be legally done now, and it would be 
for the good of all to do so. The State at large 
might bui.d and own these camps and allow peo¬ 
ple to use them, but not to claim them, and in 
time of need they would prove a material aid 
in controlling and extinguishing forest fires. Let 
them be kept under the surveillance of game pro¬ 
tectors, and have fire patrol men visit them, and 
the summer deer sniper would not operate much 
there as formerly. The man who now has a 
camp on State land, constructed of lumber he 
himself 'has carried there, is much more care¬ 
ful in the matter of forest fires than the mere 
casual camper. 
A few words more as to the remedy for some 
of these conditions. If a law were enacted and 
enforced in this State, making it some form of 
manslaughter for a man to carelessly or negli¬ 
gently kill another person while hunting wild 
game, and the man so doing had to stand trial 
for his acts, it would make most men careful 
what they fired their rifles at. Neglect to know 
whether it is wild game or a man you are 
shooting at, is just criminal carelessnes, no more, 
no less. 
A system of permanent camp permits for 
campers on State land. 
Change or repeal the resident hunting license 
law into a citizens’ identification certificate law, 
with the use of funds collected therefor in each 
county where collected for the benefit of the 
fish and game of that county itself. 
The return to a ten weeks’ open deer season. 
The advocates of hounding admit that the casual¬ 
ties they complain of have only existed since we 
have had a greatly shortened deer hunting sea¬ 
son. Thus, with this question stripped of the 
misrepresentation with which it has been sur¬ 
rounded, and the actual rights of the resident 
citizen respected, there will be more likelihood 
of every citizen becoming an efficient though un¬ 
paid game protector. Then the poacher and law 
violator would be but braving public opinion to 
continue in their business, but now, owing to 
conditions, there is but little public opinion for 
them to brave. Anyone would sympathize with 
those who, as we all do, consider themselves 
discriminated against, but had they all taken 
perfectly legal means we could have had these 
wrongs righted, and still not have now found 
ourselves facing the proposition which, if car¬ 
ried out, will in a few years deprive us of our 
deer. 
The great mistake in the making of our game 
laws is having them made in too many instances 
by men unfamiliar with the condition of things 
where the game lives. Added to this, the men 
who must see graft in everything or they will 
not touch it with one of their fingers, and we 
sometimes get legislation that does not fit the 
Case at all. We have to grin, and bear it as 
best we may. No wonder some of. us up here 
feel ljke trying nullification methods, or at least 
“anything for a change.” But for the man who 
knows, there is but one thing, viz.: legal methods, 
and often he has to make headway in spite of 
the man who has made up his mind to be 
crooked. 
My blood has boiied more than once on hear¬ 
ing some tourists say, “What a nice thing it 
would be if we could prevent the native hunter 
from killing any game at all.” And all good 
game laws we have were enacted in spite of, not 
in favor of, such men. No wonder a the game law 
is such a vexed question, when those who should 
be heard leave it to a few of us to do our part 
and theirs, too, and we who try have our hands 
full sometimes. Rodney West. 
Michigan Conservation. 
At a meeting of the Michigan Forestry As¬ 
sociation held last month in the city of Kala¬ 
mazoo, Hon. Augustus C. Carton, Deputy Com¬ 
missioner of the State Land Office and Secre¬ 
tary of the Public Domain Commission, de¬ 
livered a long and interesting address on the 
Public Domain Commission and Conservation. 
The first part of the address is in part his¬ 
torical and has to do largely with various State 
matters, and the difficulties met with by early 
commission. 
Michigan was and it is hoped will be a great 
lumbering State, and is still a great water 
power State. It is said that the water power 
developed there to-day is saving 2,000,000 tons 
of coal per year, and that there is still unde¬ 
veloped in Michigan streams power enough to 
run every manufacturing establishment in the 
State and to heat and light every home. No 
doubt there is there power to do more than 
this, but the work cannot be done by the State 
and must be done by individuals or corpora¬ 
tions under powers duly safeguarded to prevent 
alike the monoply and waste. 
“Perhaps no word in the English language is 
more misunderstood and more abused than the 
word ‘conservation.’ Conservation, as I take 
it, does not mean the placing beyond reach 
forever or the locking up indefinitely of the 
good things of this world, nor does it mean 
the putting away of things for generations yet 
unborn; but it does mean the handling and use 
of things by the present generation in such a 
way that they will not be impaired when turned 
over to those who are to follow us. 
“To conserve some things we must protect 
and regulate and to conserve other things we 
must develop. The latter is true in regard to 
the water power in our streams and rivers. It 
is as much of a waste and as contrary to the 
true idea of conservation to allow the power 
in our streams to go unharnessed as it would 
be to set fire to a coal mine and let it burn.” 
Michigan has a forestry reserve of 277.000 
arcres, a part of which has been replanted. 
Besides this the commission distributed over 
2,000,000 trees to the people of the State and 
have growing in their nursery at present over 
2,000,000 seedlings. These go to the people of 
the State at the cost of production. 
The commission asks of the Legislature an 
appropriation of not less than $20,000 a year. 
This the commission can use to advantage, and 
with a well defined and settled policy in regard 
to conservation and reforestation, Michigan 
should soon take her place well at the head of 
the list of conservation States. 
