384 INFLUENCE OF MAN 



grouse range. In those flat, fertile areas of New York which proved to be excellentl)' adapted 

 to farming, the grouse was exterminated and remains so today except for occasional "islands" 

 of wooded swamp or otherwise untillable land. 



In the southern-tier counties, which are typical of the better grouse range in New York, 

 the timber on the hill land was generally cleared on from 40 to 60 per cent of the area. It 

 is here that one today can measure the effect of land clearing on grouse. Even when one 

 includes all of the open land in the grouse range, the population density far exceeds that 

 on wilderness areas of unbroken coverts such as the Adirondack mountains. Thus on the 

 Connecticut Hill study area where the brush and woodland cover occupied about half of the 

 land surface, the grouse density for the range (including all open land) has been from 22 

 per cent to 88 per cent above that on the Adirondack study area (which is 92 per cent wood- 

 land and brush) and has averaged 50 per cent higher during the period of the Investigation. 



We must thus credit, at least partially, the farmers' land clearing operations with enabling 

 an increase of one-half in the grouse productivity of the land on this type of range — and of 

 producing that crop on only half the formerly available range. How close this condition 

 lies to the optimum effect of land clearing is not known but it seems probable that a much 

 higher productivity could be secured with from 10 per cent to 25 per cent of land cleared — 

 provided it was well scattered in small units through the range. The arrangement of the open 

 land on the range is more important than the quantity. 



Maintenance of Openings 



As just noted, the original clearing of portions of the land exerted a profound effect upon 

 its utility as grouse range. The continued farming of tliese cleared lands has been equally 

 important in maintaining the newly created carrying capacities of the range, some improved 

 and some completely destroyed for grouse. On the intensely farmed lands, the effect has 

 been to prevent any potential encroachment of the grouse on the destroyed range. On the 

 half-cleared lands, this maintenance of the openings has made of the farmer a game manager. 



In recent years, the trend toward abandomnent of the lands which have proven submar- 

 ginal to agriculture, has caused marked improvement of the grouse range. The release 

 from tillage of these fringes of open land has created brushy areas which add valuable food- 

 producing coverts to the range, increasing both the quantity and quality of the grouse cov- 

 erts. If this abandonment is not carried too far, if a suflicicnt quantity of open land is main- 

 tained well-scattered over the range, this improvement will be maintained. But in so far as 

 the abandonment of open land maintenance becomes extensive, that range is destined, in the 

 future, to aiii)roach the relatively low grouse productivity of the original wilderness. Only 

 government purchase and management can remedy this condition unless other uses profit- 

 able to private enterprise are developed. 



Pasturing of Livestock 



As a general proposition, the pasturing of farm livestock in New York is of little ini|)or- 

 tance to grouse. It is fortunate that even where dairying is a major farm industry, the 

 farmers do not practice woodland pasturing extensi\ely in the better grouse range, for rarely 

 do we find woodlands heavily pastured even when cattle have access to them. 



Woodlots in the intensively farmed areas are conunonly [>a.-lure(l to the point of creating 

 a visible "cattle line". Any grouse range so pastured is rendered almost wholly unproduc- 

 tive of grouse regardless of its other attributes. Fortunately, this occurs mainly on small 



