feeds the streams and nourishes all plant growth.

Such a forest swarms

with animal and bird life and the pellucid waters of its streams and streamlets teem with fish life; the beautiful and toothsome mountain trout in the upper and more shaded and sequestered waters, the small mouth bass, the pike and other varieties in the waters below.

I am presenting for your consideration a wilderness paradise, untouched by the hand of man. There are few such left in our Eastern States. One must cast back many years to find a real one in Virginia. For man, the destroyer, with his axe and his sawmill, has done his deadly work in every quarter. The beauty of the wilds has succumbed to progress; the trees have been absorbed in the market place. It is with what we have left that we must deal.

With the entire area of the watershed cut over and the big timber removed, nothing remains save the smaller growth, the tree tops and slash. A period of drouth sets in. The sun which for ages, has attempted to penetrate the unbrageous depths of the forest, now searches every nook and crevice. The slash becomes as tinder; the mat curls and crinkles; all moisture is absorbed. Some wanderer drops a lighted match or deliberately starts a fire. The result is the same. With amazing speed, hills and valleys are swept by the devastating flames and charred and smoking acres by thousands are left in their wake. Such fires may burn for days and though oftimes turned aside, are seldom put out except in government owned lands, where there is an adequate patrol system. And in unprotected areas these fires occur year after year, more often in spring and fall, the soil being destroyed over great tracts, left to erosion, and carried off in unmeasured quantities to the main river bottoms.

When the rains fall there is nothing to hold the moisture. The ridges and hillsides become scarred with gulley washes; floods pass down to the lowlands, often causing great damage and loss of life.

But it is with the mountains and their streams that we are now concerned. With no forest mat to hold the water; no shade to protect it from the heat of the sun, all moisture quickly disappers. Sources of small springs and trickles dry up. In many cases streams which were bold and flowing the year round, become mere wet weather creeks, with here and there a stagnant, slimy pool, in which only algae can live, during the dry months.

There are many such mountain streams once abounding in mountain trout, from which this species has disappeared, yet in many others the trout persists in the face of every danger and hardship. It is prob

ably more tenacious of life than any other fish, not excepting the lowly carp, for no other fish can exist under such difficulties.

A child once asked its mother, "Mamma, where does the light go, when it goes out?" The harassed parent replied, "I don't know, darling. You might as well as ask me where your father goes when he goes out." It is rather a debatable question among observers of our mountain streams "where the trout go when the WATER goes out. One of my angling friends insists that they climb the ridges, hide behind the logs and await the return of the water. The belief persists among many mountaineers that the trout follow the water as it disappears in the gravel and river rubble, coming out of the soggy bottoms when the water again rises above the surface of the earth. Both theories are of course fallacious.

What actually happens, I think, is this. In many cut over watersheds, the main streams, in periods of drouth, may go completely dry for long stretches, with sometimes a live pool here and there and sometimes running water, reappearing for a few hundred yards; but most of the small feeder streams of the close set draws and coves, never cease to flow. In winter and early springtime, there is a great rush of water from all sources and quite a torrent pours through the watergap. The trout which have been spawning in the feeder streams in the later summer and fall, come down with the cold winter floods, sometimes passing far below the mountains into the big waters of the open country. I have caught trout of goods size, five and six miles below the watergaps in several streams that go as dry as this banquet over the same bed for several months each year.

When the water falls, and the temperature rises, the trout, contrary to the habits of other fish, work up stream. That does not mean that they all move in a body in any one stream. The trout the fartherest down stream, probably reach only to the constant pools just above the watergap. Those alredy in this stretch may reach only a few miles higher up and so, on and on, until some literally climb the mountains. One may find trout ten or twelve inches in length, at times, in pools within a few hundred yards of the highest ridge crests, and scarcely larger than a bath tub. In the small feeder streams, thousands fall an easy prey to the wild animals of the forests, bears, coons and wildcats, and fowls of the air, and water snakes, while mountaineers also take a heavy annual toll. Yet the trout persists and offers the greatest of sports to the angler as he emerges from his winter chrysallis and greets the first zephyrs of spring.

It was Dr. Henshall, I think, who predicted that the mountain trout would soon become extinct for the very reasons which I have set out, and that the small mouth bass would be relied upon as our principal inland game fish. It seems to me that the opposite is coming to pass. In spite of the larger waters and less restricted habitat, the bass is disappearing and the trout is holding his own wherever he is given one half of one per cent of a chance. There will be good trout fishing in several protected streams that I know in National Forests this spring, while I do not know of a single one that will furnish bass fishing worth the effort.

I have probably given more space to the trout than the subject warrants. I have to confess to a personal weakness for this fish. Fishing is ever more alluring than hunting, to the real lover of the out of doors, anyhow. One always knows in advance, "How big is a grouse? How big is a turkey? How big is a bear?" but who in all time has ever been able to answer the question, "How big is a fish?" until he is brought from the water, landed and creeled? And Mr. Fish, increases in size, from day to day, from year to year, as the tale is retold, until he has reached monstrous proportions.

Next to the gentle art of fishing, the hunt claims attention and hunting is a subject which I have already closely associated with the National Forests.

Several weeks ago, I heard a prominent Virginian quoted as saying that the damage done by forest fires to game birds and game animals was largely sentimental, that it was more imaginary than real. Frankly, I do not think this gentleman knows much about the vast sweeps of either the Blue Ridge or the Alleghany mountains or the half million acres of National Forest tracts lying among them, in our own state.

When the nests of the grouse and the wild turkey dot the slash and undergrowth of the mountain sides and hollows, when the deer and other four footed game bring forth their young in the springtime-when these nests and these young are destroyed by forest fires, is the damage sentimental or imaginary? And does this not occur year after year in unprotected regions? Without elaborations on my part, I leave you to your own conclusions.

In dry autumal days when the forest fires have destroyed all signs of bird and animal food-the mast from the trees, the grapes from the vines, the seeds from the weeds, the laurel leaves, the creeping partridge berries and other greenery, the very shelter from cold and danger,

ably more tenacious of life than any other fish, not excepting the lowly carp, for no other fish can exist under such difficulties.

A child once asked its mother, "Mamma, where does the light go, when it goes out?" The harassed parent replied, "I don't know, darling. You might as well as ask me where your father goes when he goes out." It is rather a debatable question among observers of our mountain streams "where the trout go when the WATER goes out. One of my angling friends insists that they climb the ridges, hide behind the logs and await the return of the water. The belief persists among many mountaineers that the trout follow the water as it disappears in the gravel and river rubble, coming out of the soggy bottoms when the water again rises above the surface of the earth. Both theories are of course fallacious.

What actually happens, I think, is this. In many cut over watersheds, the main streams, in periods of drouth, may go completely dry for long stretches, with sometimes a live pool here and there and sometimes running water, reappearing for a few hundred yards; but most of the small feeder streams of the close set draws and coves, never cease to flow. In winter and early springtime, there is a great rush of water from all sources and quite a torrent pours through the watergap. The trout which have been spawning in the feeder streams in the later summer and fall, come down with the cold winter floods, sometimes passing far below the mountains into the big waters of the open country. I have caught trout of goods size, five and six miles below the watergaps in several streams that go as dry as this banquet over the same bed for several months each year.

When the water falls, and the temperature rises, the trout, contrary to the habits of other fish, work up stream. That does not mean that they all move in a body in any one stream. The trout the fartherest down stream, probably reach only to the constant pools just above the watergap. Those alredy in this stretch may reach only a few miles higher up and so, on and on, until some literally climb the mountains. One may find trout ten or twelve inches in length, at times, in pools within a few hundred yards of the highest ridge crests, and scarcely larger than a bath tub. In the small feeder streams, thousands fall an easy prey to the wild animals of the forests, bears, coons and wildcats, and fowls of the air, and water snakes, while mountaineers also take a heavy annual toll. Yet the trout persists and offers the greatest of sports to the angler as he emerges from his winter chrysallis and greets the first zephyrs of spring.

It was Dr. Henshall, I think, who predicted that the mountain trout would soon become extinct for the very reasons which I have set out, and that the small mouth bass would be relied upon as our principal inland game fish. It seems to me that the opposite is coming to pass. In spite of the larger waters and less restricted habitat, the bass is disappearing and the trout is holding his own wherever he is given one half of one per cent of a chance. There will be good trout fishing in several protected streams that I know in National Forests this spring, while I do not know of a single one that will furnish bass fishing worth the effort.

I have probably given more space to the trout than the subject warrants. I have to confess to a personal weakness for this fish. Fishing is ever more alluring than hunting, to the real lover of the out of doors, anyhow. One always knows in advance, "How big is grouse? How big is a turkey? How big is a bear?" but who in all time has ever been able to answer the question, "How big is a fish?" until he is brought from the water, landed and creeled? And Mr. Fish, increases in size, from day to day, from year to year, as the tale is retold, until he has reached monstrous proportions.

Next to the gentle art of fishing, the hunt claims attention and hunting is a subject which I have already closely associated with the National Forests.

Several weeks ago, I heard a prominent Virginian quoted as saying that the damage done by forest fires to game birds and game animals was largely sentimental, that it was more imaginary than real. Frankly, I do not think this gentleman knows much about the vast sweeps of either the Blue Ridge or the Alleghany mountains or the half million acres of National Forest tracts lying among them, in our own state.

When the nests of the grouse and the wild turkey dot the slash and undergrowth of the mountain sides and hollows, when the deer and other four footed game bring forth their young in the springtime-when these nests and these young are destroyed by forest fires, is the damage sentimental or imaginary? And does this not occur year after year in unprotected regions? Without elaborations on my part, I leave you to your own conclusions.

In dry autumal days when the forest fires have destroyed all signs of bird and animal food-the mast from the trees, the grapes from the vines, the seeds from the weeds, the laurel leaves, the creeping partridge berries and other greenery, the very shelter from cold and danger,