Excerpt from Eastern Maine Practical Guide

The writer is a native of Eastern Maine, who spent his boyhood there, and who has with one exception spent portions of every summer for the past ten years canoeing and camping there in the woods and on the shores.

It is hoped that this little volume will induce many who have not been in Eastern Maine to go there. Do not expect to find a deer in every thicket, a trout in every pool, or a bear in every swamp. The writer desires not to be misunderstood in what he is going to say. He is too loyal a son of Maine to depreciate or undervalue any section of it. In all candor, after having been in most every section of our State, that has become such a playground for the large population centres of the Atlantic seaboard the writer believes that Eastern Maine, with its salmon pools, pleasant shore line and deep-sea fishing, ' its bear hunting which is a feature, its inland fishing from the prolific trout and gamy black bass to the salmon of Grand Lake, not to mention the deer and moose, is the best all-around section of Maine for a return to the best Nature affords.

Ruffed grouse is used for partridge, and landlocked has been dropped from salmon. The 's has been discarded from the names of several lakes and streams. These changes are in accord with the facts in each case.

The most of the material has been taken from personal observations and notes kept when in the section. No pretense of literary merit is made. Practical ends and plain language have been kept in the foreground. It has been written in the midst of active duties in another line.

After all, is the true sportsman he who comes to kill and carry away game merely? Is not the true lover of the woods and country he who goes there to study the natural features, to note the character and classification of the vegetable growth, the ways and habits of the animals, and to become acquainted with men whose long adaptation to outdoor woods life is evi deuced in their manners and customs? Fishing and hunting are incidents and very laudable ones. It is fair to supply the camp with meat and fish. Is it necessary that tons of our big game should be shipped each year to satisfy the vanity of game destroyers? The writer wishes to make one comment. Maine people who have gone to New York and Massachusetts are loyal to their native State. On general principles, leaving out the question of ability to pay, it is hard for them to be obliged to pay a tax to hunt in the haunts of their boyhood.

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