328 ANNUAL EEPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 



but which are now producing little or nothing. Many lands that 

 may require 50 years to grow a crop of timber can, during that 

 period, produce annual crops of fur and game with no detriment to 

 the growing timber; and some of the abandoned farm lands are 

 probably better adapted to raising profitable crops of wild life 

 than they ever were to domestic crops. 



ProjDer administration can greatly increase our yield of wild life 

 and place the various species on a secure constant production basis 

 instead of the precarious existence many of them now experience. 

 Financial or recreational values can be restored where little or none 

 have existed since the time when man depleted or destroyed the 

 original stock. 



We are supposedly living in a machine age, and we utilize ma- 

 chinery whenever possible. We should therefore utilize animal life 

 to convert vegetation into more valuable products, for such animals 

 as beavers and deer convert surplus vegetation into fur or meat, 

 while the carnivores accomplish the same result b}^ eating animals 

 that have already converted vegetation into meat. 



To produce such crops, however, in paying quantities will require 

 the application of wild-animal husbandry, just as good management 

 is necessary in domestic livestock raising. 



American principles of wild life protection are based upon 

 the premise that the wild life of the country is the property of the 

 people, represented by the Government, and the individual has no 

 title in it except as he subjects the wild life to possession in accord- 

 ance with laws or regulations or in the absence of any prohibition 

 against the taking. The landowner has no right to the life merely 

 because it occurs on his land. He may take it there only under the 

 general conditions prescribed, which usually apply to landowner 

 and nonlandowner alike. The landowner may prevent others from 

 taking the animals on his land only by preventing trespassing. On 

 the public domain, that is, land owned by the Federal, State, or 

 county governments, permission to take animals is usually granted 

 to all who obtain licenses or can qualify as to residence or citizenship 

 requirements when such are required. This almost invariably re- 

 sults in the taking of more animals than should be killed if the stock 

 is to be maintained. 



The system does not encourage the individual to leave wild life 

 to breed in order that the supply may be increased, for there is 

 no assurance that he who exercises moderation in his killing will 

 profit by his discretion. On the contrary, the next hunter, trapper, 

 or fisherman may take an unreasonable number, even within legal 

 limits, and kill the very animals that the first man has left as 

 breeding stock. This system seems to have been modeled upon the 

 saying "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." If our 



