Thursday, March 23, 1950
A Sabbath well spent
Brings a week of content
And health for the joys of tomorrow.
But a Sabbath profane,
Whatever be gained,
Is a sure forerunner of sorrow. – Sir Matthew Hale
FIELD NOTES
Henry Perkin was in from the Black Forest the other day. I inquired as to his luck in trapping wildcats. He just reached back in the rumble and fetched out a big bay lynx he had taken that day. He said he was still trapping for another bobcat, and when he gets that one, he will have about cornered the supply of wildcats in his neighborhood. So far, he has trapped six red foxes this season.
– – –
Fred Trainer, up at Rider Gap, on the game breeding area, trapped another wild cat last week. She was a female of the species, and just a bit fretful over the whole situation. Being as the caught foot appeared to be only slightly bruised, it was decided to save the varmint for the zoo at the State Game Farms near Buckhannon. Don Colins, of the Conservation Service, took the cat to the farm. This was number 21 of the wildcats caught by Mr. Trainer in the three years he has been on the game area.
– – –
The sign in December was for 27 days on which snow would fall this winter. With practically no snow in December, January and February. I soft-pedaled this winter as the exception of this tried-and-true old sign to prove the rule. However, the way March has been carrying on, there might be 27 snow falls before corn planting time.
– – –
Looks like Happy Days are here again, with friend James A. Burgess, of Woodrow, paying his subscription dues with a five-pound cake of maple sugar.
– – –
The Sheets, Jordans and the rest of the fox hunters up at Greenbank, at last report, had 22 foxes. These were mostly chased around Asbury Hill and there is still fox sign there. Of this catch, 19 were males and only three females. Of course, hounds prefer to chase the heavier scent of the dog fox track; of course, the vixen soon takes to the den, the hounds go on the tracks of her mate, purposely laid down to take the pack away from that place; of course, the dog fox wanders at this time of year much farther afield than his mate.
However, with all the forgoing of courses, the fact remains, a score of fox kills around Uncle Asbury Sheets Knob is one lot of foxes to come out of anybody’s pasture field. The rate of seven to one preponderance of male foxes, gives me pause too.
Just read the sign this way, three pairs of foxes, male and female, and their kits are enough foxes for any neighborhood to support. These were all wiped out. Then dog foxes from the wide and high and long ranges of the Alleghany would drift in on nights for the good hunting of the open pasture country and meadows with hay-stacks.
The last place a dog fox with a pack of hounds behind him is going to head into is the home den so he would die like a gentleman circling round and round Asbury Hill, without heading for home.
– – –
Albert Curry has his farm home at the town line on the road up Knapps Creek to Huntersville. In the old days, it was known as the Layton Bottom. I never was told where the name Layton came from – probably after the man who cleared the land for a pioneer home. Anyway, Mr. Curry plants a field of wheat, following a crop of corn. This wheat is partly for the Curry family, but in most part it goes for deer food in its winter stage of green. He never counted more than nine head of deer on the wheat any evening this winter.
One twilight last week, Mr. Curry took notice of four deer coming into the open from the creek side of his farm and started feeding on the wheat. He also took notice of a great cat which came creeping, creeping along the fringe of timber toward the deer. He was about out of reach for his big rifle gun to take a pot shot at the varmint, when the deer took alarm and stampeded in a great burst of speed across the creek and back into the forest. Evidently, they had sensed the varmint; most likely they smelled the varmint.
– – –
Talking about varments, word comes from Hunters-ville of one desperate big cat, ranging in the Jake woods. Tried and true hunting dogs whine and cower when laid upon its track.
DIED
Norval W. Clark, aged 78 years, of Hillsboro, died Friday March 10, 1950. On Sunday afternoon the funeral was held form Oak Grove Church with burial in the family plot in Oak Grove Cemetery. The deceased was a son of the late Preston and Josephine Levisay Clark. Mr. Clark never married. He spent his entire life at the homestead in which he was born. From early life, he had been a member of the Presbyterian Church.