---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Brimhall, George H.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 22
number: 7
published: 1919-05
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Brimhall, George H., "President Joseph F. Smith," *Improvement Era* 22, no. 7 (May 1919): 609.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2207unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera2207unse
start_page: 609
end_page: 609
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-05)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2207unse
  publication_year: 1919
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1919, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# President Joseph F. Smith

<!-- page:609 -->

HUNTING THE WILD BOAR                       611

procured for me a gun, a beautiful 12-gauge hammerless and
gave me four shells, two marked with a-g on the wad and two
with a-12. He told me the shell with the 12 went in the right
barrel and the one with the g in the left, and that there were
twelve buckshot in one and nine in the other, the left barrel
holding a little larger size for the second shot. He carefully explained how to use the gun and with many a "Oui! Oui!" as if
I had never seen a gun before, he picked out a lanky hunter and
said, "Go wis him." One more "Oui!" and off we started. That
fellow was some walker. He smoked a pipe constantly, and as
we neared the forest, where the hunt was to be held, I endeavored to find out a little more about this animal. He knew
no English at all, so that with my little French and signs there
was much difficulty found in getting what information I desired.
Not wishing to pull a bone on my first hunt I desired to know
if one just killed the old boars and let the sows and little ones
go.   He told me to shoot at any of them. This was about all
the information gleaned up to the time we reached the forest,
although the conversation had waxed warm, when suddenly he
stopped short and looked at the ground. It was covered with
grass and leaves at this point. He walked back a few steps and
looked down and I peered down and looked for tracks, but
couldn't see any.     He was getting quite excited by now and
thinking that perhaps he could see tracks where I was unable
to, I must confess that I almost loaded the gun to prepare for
an emergency, when he pounced on something and it was the
bowl of his pipe that had fallen off as he walked!
     As we reached the forest he had me load the gun and it
naturally found its way to the crook of my left elbow as it always did in the field. We met some other hunters presently
and one of them told me that the gun should not be carried that
way, but by the strap over the left shoulder so that if it went
"poom" it would shoot up in the air. This was my first lesson
in the technique of the hunt.       The strap is attached on the
lower side of the gun from a little below midway on the stock
to about twelve inches off the end of the barrel.     The gun is
carried by the strap until a post is taken, when it is removed
and pointed into the forest. It becomes a fine item in the measure of safety to be carried in this manner. The forest is blocked
off in parcels containing ten to twenty acres, with fine roadways
or paths, sometimes fifty feet wide, running at right angles to
each other. They appear to have been cut for the hunters. The
shooters are placed on these paths on three sides of a block at
intervals of one to two hundred yards, and the beaters and dogs
are sent into the fourth. The shooter does not stand in the middle of this pathway, but right up against the block of forest that
the beaters are working out. This is so that when a boar is