110 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



This is an age of object teaching, and I am going to give 

 you an object lesson in game protection that is the most beauti- 

 ful and most effective I have ever learned. I have not time to 

 tell it to you in full; but the pictures talk for themselves. 



A farmer in Southern Colorado, in the San Joachin valley, 

 put down an artesian well near his house, which you see in the 

 center of the picture (showing picture), and got a fine flow of 

 water. That was in the fall of the year. The surplus water 

 ran off a hundred yards from the house into a depression and 

 formed a pond of about three acres. It was just when the ducks 

 were starting south on their migration. The water had only 

 been there two or three days whan a flock of ducks passing saw 

 it and dropped in. The man and the boys were at work in the 

 field back of the house. One of the boys saw the ducks dip and 

 he said to his brother, "Hully Gee, Jim, look at them ducks. 

 Let's get the gun and kill them." And the boys started to the 

 house on a run. But the old man had lived longer; he had learned 

 the lesson of human kindness to dumb creatures; he had learned 

 the value of living birds over dead ones, and he called the boys 

 back and said: 



"Now wait a minute, boys, and let us talk this matter over. 

 Those ducks have come from away in the Arctic regions where 

 they were hatched. They are on their way south to escape the 

 cold winter. They are tired and hungry. They have dropped 

 in here to rest and get something to eat. Now, let's treat them 

 white; let's not kill them." 



The boys thought that over a minute; it sounded good. 

 They went back to work and the ducks stayed there all after- 

 noon and other flocks dropped in and joined them. That night 

 that kind-hearted old farmer took a pail of corn and went down 

 and scattered it along the bank of that pond. That is different 

 from what most farmers do. I know, for I was one of them. 

 I grew up on a farm and am like that politician you have heard 

 of who was talking to an audience of farmers. He wanted to 

 get next to them. "Why," he said, "I am a farmer; I was born 

 on a farm and grew up between two rows of corn," and a fellow 

 in the audience yelled out, "Punkin, by thunder!" I did not 

 exactly get mine that way, but I grew up on a farm all the same, 

 and I know what I am talking about. The ducks stayed all 

 night and all day, and the next night the boys asked their father 

 if they might go down and feed the ducks. "Yes," he said, 

 "Go ahead." And they went; and they went the next night and 



