Excerpt from Game Farming for Profit and Pleasure: A Manual on the Wild Turkeys, Grouse, Quail or Partridges, Wild Ducks and the Introduced Pheasants and Gray Partridges; With Special Reference to Their Food, Habits, Control of Natural Enemies and the Best Methods of Preserving and Breeding: Including, Al

Our ornithologists and sporting writers deplore the rapid disappearance of this wonderful food supply and often they predict the extermination of game in America. Some recom mend, continually, more stringent game laws, limiting or prohibiting sport, but, since the game has continued to vanish notwithstanding such enactments, many have doubted the possibility fof: saving the more valuable upland species if any shooting be permitted. There is good reason for the doubt. A large and ever increasing number of guns, each taking only a few birds during a short open season, undoubtedly produces the same result which was produced by a smaller number of guns, each taking a larger number of birds during a long open season. All naturalists agree that the absolute prohibition of field sports does some good only when the species has not been too much decimated to survive its natural enemies. All agree that even a little shooting is too much, unless the game enemies be controlled, because any slight additional check to the in crease of a species must cause it rapidly to decrease in numbers. The prohibition of sport, which we have been facing, is highly undesirable. Fortunately we now know that it is unnecessary.

Field sports need no defence or apology in so far as the readers of this little book are concerned. Their enemies do not realize the importance of the health-giving exercise which they denounce, or the economic value of the food which field sports can be made to produce. The distinguished orni thologist, Elliot, in his book on our gallinaceous game birds, refers to the pleasure they yield and the incentive they provide for action and effort, when in the leafy aisles of whispering forests, or in the thickets and along the banks of the leaping stream, or in the open sky-encircled prairie, man in his quest for these game-like creatures, aided by his faithful dog, findsrenewed health and strength to wrestle with the toils and troubles of his daily life.

The food value of our game birds becomes more and more important as the prices of beef and mutton continue to rise, as it seems they must, as population increases. The restora tion of field sports and the propagation and practical protection of our game birds have become of great economic importance. I am pleased to observe that the tendency of our legislation is in the direction of encouraging the profitable production of game. I firmly believe, with the aid of intelligent State Game Officers, the sportsmen and game farmers of America can make the game birds more plentiful than they ever were, using only a small portion of the lands suitable for game which long have been posted against all shooting. As we shall observe, the natural enemies of game and the dogs and cats, and illegal gunners must be controlled on some of the breeding grounds if field sports are to be perpetuated in America. Since it is absolutely necessary that our game be properly preserved and multiplied on some of the farms with the farmer's consent, I am in favor of it. There is no danger of game preserving being overdone. The country is too big. We should remem ber, also, that for the most part it must be done on the farms where shooting already is prohibited and that such industry can harm no one.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com