THE "EMPIRE STATE'S" GAME-BOOK.
SOME seven years ago the State of New York put all its fisheries, game, and forests into the hands of a Commission, giving to the said Commissioners powers, both of purse and control, to protect the State's forests, restock its rivers with fish, increase and maintain the head of game, both large and small, and generally to provide the sovereign people with sport, to keep up the stock of timber over whole ranges of mountains, and, in Roman phrase, to "see that the Republic took no harm" in regard to the opportunities which Nature has most lavishly provided for making outdoor life as delight- ful as possible in the old Territories on the Atlantic shore. The capacity of Americans for what may be called communal amusement is almost boundless, and this genial side of their character shines nowhere more conspicuously than in associa- tion for the purposes of sport. Their shooting and fishing clubs are an unqualified success. But there might have been a doubt whether a whole State could manage to provide itself with amusement of this kind, open to all, without either exhausting the supply of game, or causing friction among the shooters and anglers entitled to enjoy it.
We may say at once that the enterprise has met with a great measure of success, and that the way in which this has been achieved gives every hope that a much larger share of the pleasures of forest, field, and stream is in store for the public of New York State. Progress is reported every year in a kind of glorified Blue-book, printed on art paper, and enriched with a most varied gallery of illustrations, covering every side of outdoor life with which the Commission deals. The Commission, in fact, sets to work not only to provide means of enjoyment, but to teach the people how to use them. The fish in the streams are described, with hints how to catch them, and illustrated by some of the best coloured plates ever printed. A selection of game-birds is also illustrated in each Report, with notes on their habits. Pictures by the best artists, the American Thorburns, Wolfs, and Caldwells, show !scenes of shooting, fishing, and camping out ; and some dozen gentlemen endowed with all the cheery optimism of. Frank Buckland and great practical knowledge are not only busy hatching and planting fish, looking after forests, acting as head game wardens, rearing pheasants, stopping forest fires, and inquiring into the ravages of insects and vermin on trees and game, but also writing about what is being done in a very attreetiva way. The death of Mr. A. N. Cheney, the State fish-culturist, and a contributor to the last Report, is a great loss to the Commission. But his mantle has fallen on very capable shoulders.
It is always a little difficult to distinguish between the Federal and State Executives in the Union. The matter here dealt with is a State business, independent altogether of the National Fisheries. Commission. It controls only the forests and streams of the State of New York. But that member of the Union owns in the Forest Preserve more than a million three hundred thousand acres, and more than eighty thousand acres in the Catskill Mountains, which latter, being close to the great industrial centres, will soon become a semi-urban playground. Besides this there is an area called the Adiron- dack Park not in the "Preserve," and managed under powers not described in the Report, but apparently very loosely con- trolled, bringing the total acreage of forest in general up to three million four hundred thousand acres. It is interesting to see "Beaver Meadows" scheduled in the list of lands, though there are no beavers left.
Into the streams of the State the Commission last year put more than a hundred and fifty millions of flab; two thousand four hundred and sixty-seven acres have been added to the State oyster grounds, and thirty-five million Tom cods put into the salt-water fisheries. Omitting moneys spent on pur- chasing land and maintaining forests, the total cost of fish propagation, fish and game protection, the shell-fish depart- ment, and taking deer to the forests, with some items for printing, was about £30,000. The fish cost a little over
211,000, the gamekeeping generally £10,000, and the shell-fish (a remunerative item) £3,000. In return for this the public had free fishing of every kind over a vast territory, and killed deer to an amount which at the ordinary rate reckoned per stag in Scotland (NO) would represent a sporting rental in this country of 2169,000! The Report does not disdain to teach the public how to keep aquariums of fresh and salt water creatures, with appropriate vegetation in each, and gives a complete account of the lives of certain fishes. Its character is always that of the elephant's trunk, for nothing either large or small comes amiss to it. Thus we learn that Lake Erie, though only the fourth in size of the Great Lakes, has the most important fishery of any body of fresh water in the world. It is a shallow lake, with an average depth of only eighty feet. Consequently it is "fishable" all over. Two counties of the New York State abut on the lake, and the community is largely interested in the fiaheries. These are carried out both in a regular and irregular manner. The list of fish taken is astonishing. Herring form the largest part, coming apparently up the St. Lawrence and through Ontario. But trout, blue pike, bass, bturgeon, whitefish, yellow perch, "Bangers," "sheep's heads," and many others unknown on English tables swell the list. There is a curious fishery in the winter when the ice is on the lake. Blue pike are the main quarry, but several other species are taken. Nearly all the dockmen, sailors, and labourers who are then out of work take to the ice fishery, setting out from Buffalo with improvised sledges, to which dogs of every sort and kind (some, it is said, " commandeered " unknown to their owners) are harnessed. The fishery sometimes lasts for ninety days, and is quite remunerative.
The scenery of the forests is amply illustrated. Much of the Adirondack region has a most English look. The plates showing an Adirondack stream might be a scene in Shrop- shire. The Whiteface Mountain Range, with the lake at its foot, resembles the surroundings of some high Welsh tarn, and the narrows in Wilmington Notch a scene in Dovedale. It is these beautiful lakes and swift-running streams, full of boulders and good pools, that the Commission stocks with fish, while the foresters are busy preserving the woods. The difficulty to be coped with is the "lumber trade" and the "acid factories." These two industries use only the firs of various kinds, leaving the hardwood trees in situ. The " lumber " also merges into the wood-pulp mills where paper material is manufactured. In the Adirondack forests nearly four hundred and fifty millions of square feet of timber are cut annually for sawmills and pulp mills, and it seems obvious that the State must either reduce the number of its licenses to cut timber, or properly replant the denuded dia. tricts. Probably a very large proportion of the more beauti- ful forest scenery should be withdrawn altogether from commercial use. In this connection it would be well if the compilers of next year's Report inserted some scenes from our own New Forest showing the splendour of really ancient trees in a temperate climate. There is nothing to approach the beauty of Mark Ash or Gretnam Wood anywhere on the Continent, where " made " forests all replace the ancient and uncovenanted beauty of natural woodland left to itself.
Not the least candid part of the book is a profusely illus- trated chapter on forest scenes in Europe. The author, Dr. John Gifford, wishes to impress his countrymen with the need for studying the art of forest management, and, as he justly says, this can be seen at its best on the Continent of Europe, where the various phases of neglect, or results of neglect, now to be seen in the United States have either been combated, or are seen in their full development. Photographs of mountains totally denuded of timber in Fiance or Italy are useful reminders of what may happen in the Catskills, and armies of workmen replanting hillsides in France now as bare as cinder- heaps hint, not without emphasis, that the wholesale destruc- tion of a nation's trees entails expense later. As forestry is too little studied in England, the chapter is most suggestive to readers on this side of the Channel, alike by its letterpress and its photographs, selected by a master of the forester's art who has a considerable power of choosing scenes which will strike the imagination. Vallombrosa, for instance, is now a famous forestry school; a splendid house, once a monastery, in a valley covered from the bottom to the summit of the surround- ing hills with magnificent forests, originally planted by the monks. As Dr. Gifford says, no one in America will think that he can apply all that he sees in Europe to his own hills. But there is a great deal which is suggestive. Among the scenes selected for illustration are what would be a bare hill near Florence were it not now planted from bottom to top with olive groves, beautiful and profitable, among which are set houses, large and small. The white oxen of Clitumnus are seen in another plate drawing olives in cartloads to the mill. Italy is an ancient country which has consumed all its old wood, and is replacing it on a grand scale. The moral is that the United States ought not to have to do this, but should preserve the fifty million acres which it still possesses. French char- coal-burners ; the (to American eyes) badly designed European axes and saws ; our European contrasts of the modern and the mediteval, shown inter alio by a scene in Finland, where close to an " up-to-date " forest the peasants are reaping rye " without a reaper and binder " ; forests and agriculture side by side in Germany ; mistletoe in French woods ; the woods of Compiegne; and German spruce forests,—are all shown with appropriate explanations. The book closes with a series of scenes in the absolutely wild natural forests of North America, and some account of the New York State College of Forestry by the Director, Mr. T. Fernow.
Previous page
