
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 

Dr WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 

Member of Audit Bureau of Circulation 


THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor 
recreation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
NATIONAL RECREATION CONFERENCE 
ORE than half a century ago there gathered 
a handful of men dedicated to the preserva- 
tion of the great outdoors—to preserve for 
man and youth the song of the birds and the 
murmur of the brook, and as an expression of their 
purpose and their hopes was born FOREST AND 
STREAM. 
Today, more than fifty years later, the President 
of the United States calls an outdoor conference 
which attracts world-wide attention. From every 
part of America come men and women respond- 
ing to the call, once again dedicating themselves 
to carry on this work. The President wants to 
preserve for posterity the hardy American, the 
American in whose fibers surges the love of fish 
and game—the American who pulsates with the 
glorious joy of clean living in the great out- 
doors:+: 4s. 
It is gratifying to FOREST AND STREAM to see 
the entire nation, led by the President, coming into 
the outdoors. Gratifying, too, is it to read on 
the Permanent Committee such names as George 
Shiras, Charles Sheldon, Dr. John Merriam— 
names well known, respected and loved in FOREST 
AND STREAM homes—names of those who through 
FOREST AND STREAM have made their distinguished 
contribution to the outdoor traditions of this 
America in which we live. 
There is also the name of Colonel Theodore 
Roosevelt, who was appointed by the President 
as Executive Chairman of the conference, and it 
is fitting that the son of a distinguished father, 
who was so closely associated with FOREST AND 
STREAM, should carry on the work begun so long 
ago. 
The President wants America to stay young; he 
invites industry to partake of recreation, to join 
the building of the utensils of civilization with the 
spiritual glory of forests and streams, to keep 
clean and unsullied in the heart and the soul of 
America the traditions of the pioneers. .. . 
More than fifty years ago it was but a voice in 
the night, a vision of a handful. Today, it lives to 
see a rich and golden fruition of its aims and its 
hopes. . . . Today, it lives to see the official head 
of the nation call to man and boy the whole coun- 
try over to come outdoors, to hunt and fish and 
play and know the everlasting joy of a true birth- 
rignt.9em a. 
And it is fitting that every soul in America 
should respond to the President’s call, for America 
is the outdoors and the outdoors is America. 
Of all the distinguishing characteristics between 
America and the rest of the world, our outdoor 
life is the dominant one. Here, we have learned 
to persevere; here, we have found the tolerance 
that is America. . . . Here, with fish and bird and 
game we have learned the spiritual association 
between man and these. ... Here, the courage 
that is America is born and it grows. . . 
We look back fifty years and we see an America 
of vast open spaces. Yes, the stampeding herd 
of buffalo is gone, the howl in the night of the 
coyote is partly stilled. The prairie hut has given 
way to paved boulevards and speeding railroads. 
Marble structures mark the spot where pioneers 
in covered wagons crossed the trail. Monuments 
are these all to the America of the outdoors. .. . 
Yet there is so much that is left to us to live 
with, so much to preserve and to keep for our- 
selves and those who are to follow. . . . FOREST 
AND STREAM’S earnest hope is that the President’s 
Conference will bring to the seething city and to 
the quiet hamlet, to the mountain top and to the 
valley—wherever man and boy lives in America, 
the golden companionship of the outdoors. . 
that to every factory and every home and to every 
counting room, the traditions made beautiful by 
that handful fifty years ago may be brought home 
with such force and effect that they may live for- 
everinc.. 
WOODS-HUNGER 
HERE is no hunger like woods-hunger. It 
owns no time and place, and is not respective 
of man and his frailties. It comes suddenly, 
swiftly, like the passing of a shadow, and when 
it has enveloped man it leaves him sick at heart 
and estranged with the lures of the city. It has 
something of the craving of the exile, the dreams 
of the refugee, the poignant yearning of the ab- 
sent, yet it is not a feeling of homesickness but 
rather a spiritual thing that haunts like the loss 
of a friend or a favorite book or a pipe of long 
acquaintance. Angler, hunter, explorer, natural- 
ist, gold-seeker—these men feel it like no other 
men. Something calls like “one perfect music.” 
Poets sing of this wild longing as the song of the 
Red Gods. And yet they may be right—no one 
can explain it. 
Great events have come from unconsidered 
trifles, and woods-hunger may sweep like a ghoul 
from a simple incident. The city throbs with in- 
cessant roar and dissonances, but down in the ma-. 
sonic canyons men walk the ebb and flow of the 
mortal current, and among these men are those 
whose soul may be winging to a fugitive excur- 
sion far from the frets of cities and men. A flock 
of ducks swinging into the northern blue pringe 
a tidal flood of memories, a deer hanging in the 
door of a butcher shop produces the hunt fever 
or a tank of live trout can send every fisherman 
away with heartache and old desire. Of such things 
is the stuff of woods-hunger. 
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