Forest and Stream 
Copyright, 1906, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 


Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. t 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW-YORK,; SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 

i VOL. LXVI.—No. 24. 
I gob. | No. 346 Broadway, New York. 


The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre- 
ation, and to cultivate arefined taste for natural 
objects. Announcement in first number of 
Forest AND STREAM, Aug. 14, 1873, 
FRANK J. THOMPSON. 
Mr. Frank J. THompson, who died in Cul- 
peper, Va., May 29, aged 79 years, was in many 
respects one of the most remarkable men of 
his time. His life, could it have been written, 
would form a romance far beyond the dreams of 
the novel writer. He spent many years traveling 
in unknown countries, and in desert, in jungle, in 
mining camp and in city, met with adventures 
such as come to few men. Mr. Thompson was 
born in Culpeper, Va., and for a time studied at 
William and Mary College. He left home early 
in life, and was for some time attached to a cir- 
cus, where, perhaps, was laid the foundation for 
that great love of animals which always character- 
ized him. 
naturalist and began to travel and to collect wild 
beasts, and in doing this he covered most of the 
tropics of the old world. The animals which he 
collected he sent to zoological gardens, and he 
early became known as a daring and successful 
explorer and collector. He was in Africa when 
the Kimberly diamond mines were discovered, 
and was one of the first to reach the ground. 
Before and after his diamond-digging experience, 
he traveled over most of South Africa. He spoke 
fluently the French, Dutch and Zulu languages. 
During his early life he was for some time a 
resident of New York, and he was the first hus- 
band of Agnes Le Clercq, who afterward became 
the famous Princess Salm Salm of our Civil War 
days and Maximilian’s attempt at a Mexican 
empire, 
Mr. Thompson was so well known as being 
better acquainted with wild animals than anyone 
else that he was appointed the first superintendent 
of the Zoclogical Gardens of Philadelphia, having 
been summoned to take that place while traveling 
in Australia. Subsequently he became superin- 
tendent of the Zoological Gardens in Cincinnati 
and in Buffalo. 
Perhaps no other man ever had so great an 
experience with the wild game of the tropical 
world at large, and with his hunting experience 
was mingled a knowledge of the life-habits of 
these animals, which, if written out, would make 
the adventures of a multitude of famous book 
writers of these later days seem insignificant. 
Mr. Thompson had been a contributor to 
Forest AND STREAM for a period of more than 
thirty years. His writings covered a wide range 
of subjects, sometimes describing hunting excur- 
sions in Africa, India or Australia, or adventures 
in the diamond mines, or observations in natural 
history, such as the birth of the sea lion in cap- 
tivity, the first grizzly bears in captivity, or the 
Early in life he became a practical . 
breeding of the passenger pigeons in the Zoo- 
logical Gardens of Cincinnati. 
Personally Mr. Thompson was a man of gigan- 
tic frame and force, but of a nature so kindly 
and benevolent as: to endear him to all with whom 
he was brought. in contact. 
GAME REFUGES. 
AsouTt a month ago Mr. Smith, of California, 
introduced in the House of Representatives a bill 
authorizing the President of the United States 
to designate areas in the public forest reserves 
within the State of California, which should be 
set aside for the protection of game or other 
animals, birds or fish, and be recognized as a 
breeding place therefor. The bill provided that 
when such areas had been set aside, it should be 
unlawful to kill or capture animals, birds or fish 
on these lands, except under regulations to be 
prescribed by the Secretary of Agriculture. The 
act was not intended to protect noxious animals, 
nor to interfere with the operation of the local 
game laws. A few days ago Mr. Smith was 
authorized by the Committee on Public Lands to 
submit a favorable report on the bill, and this, 
together with a minority report against it, has 
been received by Congress. 
The number of bills which have been introduced 
in Congress bearing on this subject shows clearly 
how widespread the feeling for the establishment 
of game refuges is becoming. Every one knows 
what the preservation of the Yellowstone Park 
has done, and the people of certain States, 
becoming discouraged by the tardiness shown by 
Congress in passing the general game refuge bill, 
to which we have so often referred, are asking 
their representatives to see if they cannot get 
special bills passed for their States. The senti- 
ment in regard to this matter seems to be taking 
somewhat ‘the course followed by the feeling for 
forestry a dozen years ago. 
DEVELOPING THE NUT TREES. 
Dr. Ropert T. Morris, who concludes in this 
issue the account of his canoe trip to Hudson 
Bay in 1905, tells us that this year he has given 
up his customary summer expedition to the north, 
in order that he may devote the entire three 
months of his vacation to an enterprise in which 
he is deeply interested—the development of hick- 
ory and other nuts by selection and propagation 
of choice types. Last autumn Dr. Morris con- 
ducted, through the American Agriculturist, a 
competition which had for its purpose the collec- 
tion of a series of hickory nuts of superior quality. 
Prizes were offered for the best specimens sent 
to him, and the competition brought nuts from 
many parts of the country, from which six, com- 
ing from New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, 
Massachusetts and Maryland, were chosen in the 
order named as the best and the most promising 
for the contemplated experiments. Dr. Morris 
has secured cuttings from the prize trees, and a 
large amount of other material with which he 
proposes to experiment this summer. Something 
of the scope of the work undertaken is indicated 
in his letter to the Agriculturist, in which he 
says: 
“T plan to try hybridizing hickory, English wal- 
nut, black walnut and some of the oaks. This 
latter will be tried at the suggestion of Luther 
Burbank, who has taken time in his busy hours 
and given me many valuable suggestions and 
points. He says my work promises great interest, 
For experiments in securing early bearing dwarfs, 
I have purchased from various nurserymen, chin- 
quapins, three dwarf types of oaks, Pterocaryas, 
Castenopsis and several European and Asiatic 
chestnuts. I am not sure which stalks will take 
the grafts. I have a fine lot of cuttings from 
the prize trees located as the result of the nut 
contest last fall. I am determined to work out 
the principles of successful grafting of hickories 
and other allied nuts. I am working along sur- 
gical lines, for I am convinced that fermentation 
of the sap is a feature which has thwarted the 
efforts of nurserymen heretofore.” 
Dr. Morris has entered upon a new field, and 
one in which there are vast possibilities. The 
result of his work may very well prove to be an 
incalculable addition to the food resources of the 
country, and a corresponding enhancement of the 
value of farm and weodland. 
Dr. HutcHinson, of London, formerly presi- 
dent of the Royal College of Surgeons, has de- 
voted several years to the study of leprosy, and 
in the course of his investigation of the subject 
he has made extended tours to all the countries 
where the disease is chiefly found. The results 
of his work have been published in a volume, 
which may be epitomized in the declaration that 
leprosy is not a contagious disease, but may be 
traced entirely to the diet of those afflicted with 
it, and has its origin in the eating of decayed 
fish. Experiments appear conclusively to have 
demonstrated that the disease cannot be com- 
municated by contact, despite the conventional 
shunning of the leper by his fellow creatures, 
in all ages of the world, and the sequestered 
leper colony establishments of to-day, 
R 
It is announced that the Cascade Lake Club, 
near Lake Placid, N. Y., of which Gov. Higgins, 
Attorney-Gen. Mayer and other prominent State 
officials are members, will before long release on 
its preserve near Lake Placid a number of elk 
and moose. The elk are understood to be 
some donated by the Austin Corbin estate, while 
the last Legislature appropriated $2,100 for the 
purchase of moose for the Adirondacks. It is 
said that beaver also are to be introduced. The 
sum of these many efforts toward restocking the 
Adirondacks with the wild animals that were 
formerly found there cannot fail in time to have 
its effect on the life of that region. 
