410 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



We started out to prove that the undeveloped science of game man- 

 agement can borrow its framework from the developed science of for- 

 estry. It is hoped that the analogy between the two sciences and the 

 sample system in which the analogy is concretely applied will throw 

 some light on the writer's contention that foresters can meet the big 

 needs of the game problem by simply applying the principles with 

 which they, and they only, are familiar. 



In view of the impending extermination of certain valuable game 

 species, it seems advisable, before concluding this paper, to make a 

 further comparison between forestry and game management in the 

 matter of selection of species. In the writer's opinion, this is a point 

 which cannot receive too much emphasis. 



Forestry may prescribe for a certain area either a mixed stand or a 

 pure one. But game management should always prescribe a mixed 

 stand — that is, the perpetuation of every indigenous species. Variety 

 in game is quite as valuable as quantity. In the Southwest, for instance, 

 we want not only to raise a maximum number of mule deer and turkey, 

 but we must also at least perpetuate the Mexican mountain-sheep, big- 

 horn, antelope, white-tail deer, Sonora deer, elk, and javelina. The 

 attractiveness, and hence the value of our Forests as hunting grounds, 

 is easily doubled by retaining our extraordinary variety of native big 

 game. This variety also adds enormously to their attractiveness for 

 the summer camper, the cottager, and the fisherman. The perpetua- 

 tion of interesting species is good business, and their extermination, in 

 the mind of the conservationists, would be a sin against future genera- 

 tions. 



Forestry does not face so acute a problem. Black walnut or yellow 

 poplar may have become commercially defunct in our hardwood for- 

 ests, but they are not extinct and never will be. We may destroy them 

 with fire and axe, and burn off the soil of their native habitat to the 

 uttermost extremity of abuse, but some day, somehow, we can always 

 have a walnut or a poplar forest if the demand is sufficiently urgent. 

 But not so with most game. White-tail deer and rabbits seem to have 

 an immunity to extinction, but the great majority of big-game species 

 may quite conceivably become extinct. One species of big game is ex- 

 tinct, two species have already been exterminated from the Southwest, 

 and five more are even now threatened with extermination. 



Foresters are quite properly concerned over, the threatened commer- 

 cial extermination of chestnut by blight and white pine by the blister 

 rust. But how much concern is felt over the impending extermination 

 of mountain-sheep and antelope on the National Forests? I am afraid, 



