SLIPPERYELMHURST, HUDSON, WIS., Oct. 6.--_To the Editor:_ Might I ask,
through the column of your justly celebrated paper, if any one will give
me the requisite information regarding the care of game during the
winter?
My preserves are located on my estate here at Slipperyelmhurst, and
while I am absent lecturing in the winter, in answer to the loud calls
of the public, I am afraid that my game may not have the proper care,
and that unscrupulous people may scalp my fox and poach the eggs of my
pheasants.
Besides, I am rather ignorant of the care of game, and I would like to
be able to instruct my game-keeper when I go away as to his duties.
The game-keeper at Slipperyelmhurst is what might be called a self-made
game-keeper. He never had any instruction in his profession, aside from
a slight amount of training in high-low-jack. Therefore he has won his
way unassisted to the position he now occupies.
What I wish most of all is to understand the methods of preserving game
during the winter so that when it is scarce in the spring I can take a
can-opener and astonish people with my own preserves.
My fox succeeded in getting through the summer in fine form. I got him
from Long Island where the sportsmen from New York had tried to hunt him
for several seasons, but with indifferent success. He was not well
broken in the first place, I presume, and the noise of the hounds and
domesticated Englishmen in full cry no doubt frightened him. He is still
timid and more or less afraid of the cars. He shies, too, when I lead
him past an imitation Englishman. He is in good health, this fall,
however, and as I got him at a low price I am greatly pleased. Very
likely the reason he did not give good satisfaction in New York was that
those who used him did not employ a good earth-stopper. Much depends on
this man. Of what use is an active, robust and well-broken fox, well
started, if he be permitted to get back into his hole? I have employed
as an earth-stopper a gentleman who saws my wood during the winter and
who assists us in fox-hunting in the hunting season.
Born in a quiet little rural village called Martelle, in Pierce county,
Wisconsin, he early evinced a strong love for sport. Day after day he
would abstain from going to school that he might go forth into the woods
and study the habits of the chipmunk. For five years his health was
impaired to such a degree that he was not well enough to safely attend
school, but just barely robust enough to drag himself away to a distance
of fourteen miles, where he could snare suckers and try to regain his
health. To climb a lightning-rod and skin off the copper wire for
snaring purposes with him was but the work of a moment. To go joyously
afield day after day and drown out the gopher, while other boys were
compelled to gopher an education, was his chief delight.
As a result of this course he is not a close student of books, but he
can skin a squirrel without the slightest embarrassment, and you could
wake him up suddenly out of a profound slumber and ascertain from him
exactly what the best method is for draping a frog over a pickerel hook
so as to produce the best and most pleasing effects. Such is the
description of a man who, by his own unaided exertions, has risen to the
proud position of earth-stopper on my estate.
He is ignorant of the care of wild game, however, and says he has never
preserved any. We want to know whether it would be best to sprinkle our
fox with camphor and put him down cellar or let him run in the henhouse
during the winter.
Would your readers please say, also, if any of them have had any
experience in fox-hunting, what is the best treatment for a horse which
has injured himself on a barbed-wire fence while in rapid pursuit of the
fox? I have a fine fox-hunter that I bought two years ago from a
milk-man. This horse was quite high-spirited, and while the hounds were
in full cry one day I had to take a barbed-wire fence with him. This
horse, which I call Isosceles, because he is one kind of a triangle,
went over the fence in such a manner as to catch the pit of his stomach
on the barbed wire and expose his interior department and its methods
to the casual spectator. We put back all the stomachs we thought he was
entitled to, but he has not done well since that, and I have often
thought that possibly we did not succeed in returning all his works. How
many stomachs has the adult horse? I am utterly and sadly ignorant in
these matters and I yearn for light.
I certainly favor a more thorough knowledge of animal anatomy on the
part of our school-children.
Every child should know how many stomachs, bowels and gizzards there are
in the fully equipped cow or horse. Nothing is more embarrassing to the
true sportsman than to see his favorite horse ripped open by a
barbed-wire fence while in full chase, and then not know which digestive
organ should go back first, or when they have all been replaced.
So far as Isosceles is concerned, I remember thinking at the time that
we must have put back inside of his system about twice as much digestive
apparatus as he had before, as my earth-stopper said that we had given
that horse enough for a four-horse team, and yet he is ill.
I would like to hear from any of the fox-hunters in Cook county who may
have had a similar experience.
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