JUNE 23, 1906. ] 

FOREST AND STREAM. 
989 

EXPLORING A 
In the Flatlands. 
THERE is a charm about the flatlands, by the 
shores of Jamaica Bay, Long Island, which is 
not equalled, I think, by that of a hilly country. 
They are so airy, so free! You can stand, and, 
looking around, have an uninterrupted view in 
any direction for miles. Yet, they do not suggest 
the prairies with their vague sadness—their lone- 
liness as of the ocean. Here there is variety— 
abundant cultivation and the warmth of human. 
homes. 
As to the latter, it would be difficult to find 
anything more picturesque than the old Dutch 
farm houses. Low and rambling, with their con- 
cave roofs and their high chimneys, they har- 
monize admirably with the landscape and are a 
true delight to ‘the eye. Each of them 
is sure to have some old trees about it, 
beloved of the yellow warblers and preacher 
birds, whose blithe notes echo all day long. And 
behind the trees is the barn, gray and hoary with 
age, where the swallows love to build. You will 
see them sweep through the open door, and, if 
you choose to enter after them, you will see some 
busily engaged upon their nests and others twit- 
tering cheerily on the rafters. You look around 
amid piles of hay and farm implements and your 
eye, perchance, lights on a wagon of antique 
FLORIDA SHELL 

MOUND. 
build. This is the vehicle which conveyed pro- 
duce to market when New York was young. Sud- 
denly something makes you start! A hen has 
risen from the hay and set up a tremendous 
cackling. She has laid an egg and is proud of it. 
As she leaves the barn she picks up straws and 
throws them about her, as though she would be 
building a nest. You follow her out and hear 
her lord and master congratulate her with a re- 
sounding “Cock-a-doodle-doo !” 
The little garden attracts you—a tangle of 
weeds and flowers, with a decaying beehive in a 
corner, Imagination can picture the timve—ere the 
strenuous age began—when it was trim and neat 
and the bees droned about the hive, the only 
sound ‘that broke the stillness of the summer’s 
day. 
From the farm house you stroll down through 
the fields where the men and women are hoeing. 
How long and innumerable the drills are. You 
wonder how people had ever the patience to make, 
or sow them. At length you reach the workers. 
All. roughly dressed, but hale and contented look- 
ing. No anemia here—no carking care. 
O fortunatus nimium, sua si bona norient, Agricolas! 

The crows, which were much in evidence in the 
early spring, have now disappeared. In_ their 
place we have occasional grackles, or robins, or 
-~numerable. 
starlings from the adjacent groves or thickets. A 
brief search among the fresh loam suffices to fill 
their beaks with worms, then off they are in a 
straight, unerring line to their callow young. A 
winding band of green at the bottom of the fields 
invites you, so you continue your walk and find 
the creek. The tall reeds are glistening in the 
sunlight and among them you hear the red- 
winged blackbirds and the sedge warblers voic- 
ing their joy in the lovely spring weather. By 
following the watercourse you reach the salt 
marshes, now covered with fine lush grass, 
through which you must walk warily. Here you 
will put up snipe not a few, but vain will be your 
search in all probability if you attempt to find 
their nests, for with the snipe as with the wood- 
cock, protective coloring is a fine art. Perhaps 
you will also surprise a brood of young water- 
fowl in some quiet pool, but presto! no sooner 
seen than gone beneath the surface. 
You like to linger in these salt marshes so 
fresh and cool, with the full, uninterrupted sweep 
of the ocean breezes, and nowhere about the flat- 
lands are you reminded so much of old’ Holland. 
Is it any wonder, you ask yourself, that the Dutch 
settled hereabouts? Their hearts must have 
jumped with joy at sight of the land. But, after 
nearly two centuries of primitive peace and 
plenty, they or their descendants are rapidly 
passing away, or betaking themselves to other 
scenes of our broad land, and soon, alas! the 
picturesque old houses will have passed, too, and 
their places be usurped by modern rows of flats! 
FRANK MOooNAN. 
Forests, Fish and Game. 
Address Delivered by J. S. Whipple, Commis- 
sioner of Forest, Fish and Game, at Buffalo, 
N. Y., June 8, 1906, on the Necessity for 
the Preservation of the Forests, Fish and 
Game of New York. , 
Tue benefits derived by the propagation of 
fish and game birds, by the protection of fish, 
game and forests, and by reforesting, are in- 
For the present purpose they may 
be classed as follows: 
First—For commercial purposes. 
Second—From the sportsman’s standpoint. 
Third—For preserving and restoring health. 
Fourth—For pleasure and recreation. 
For Commercial Purposes. 
Propagation, protection, preservation and re- 
foresting are so connected and essential one to 
the other that a failure to observe any one ot 
them, will, in a large degree, if not entirely, 
destroy the others. To illustrate: There is no 
use in propagating and distributing either fish 
or birds if they are not protected, and their 
destruction limited to an extent that a stock 
of each may always be kept on hand. 
To fail to preserve the forests by prohibiting 
improper cutting or neglecting to reforest de- 
nuded lands would practically destroy all the 
other conditions: to wit, the cover for birds and 
the opportunity for them to increase; the drying 
up of the sources of the rivulets, creeks and 
rivers, thereby destroying the fish as well as 
the commercial usefulness of the great streams 
whose sources are in the mountains and deep - 
woodlands. Therefore, this subject may be dis- 
cussed from at least the four standpoints first 
mentioned, any one of which would furnish 
adequate reasons for the expenditure of the 
money that is used by the department. Still, 
to understand the subject fully, we must speak 
of it as a whole, and try to understand all of its 
values, the aggregate of which, if they could be 
accurately computed, would be greater than 
the total value of any other interest possessed 
by the people of the Empire State. 
There is a surprising lack of knowledge among 
a great majority of our people in relation to 
this subject. Few of us—even those who love 
to fish, hunt, camp and roam about the woods— 
ever think of the question of values in this con- 
nection. 
To make it perfectly plain, let us examine in 
a general way, the commercial value of the fish 
that are produced within the jurisdiction of the 
