CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME. 



69 



whereof I speak. I have found but few 

 farmers, who, unless they were also 

 'sportsmen,' when the deep snows of win- 

 ter have come, will take a bag of grain on 

 their backs and hunt up the starving quail 

 to feed them, but upon the contrary, many 

 farmers, in action at least, say to the 

 quail, 'I know you are hungry and I have 

 the grain to feed you, but if I give you 

 that grain, worth a dollar a bushel to me, 

 you will in all probability go over onto 

 my neighbor's property, and he will either 

 kill you or get the benefit of your life 

 work, so I guess I'll stay in by the fire at 

 home and keep my grain.' Along comes 

 the sportsman, very likely traveling in a 

 hired rig, who buys this very bushel of 

 grain, feeds part of it to the birds the 

 producer of the grain has refused or neg- 

 lected to feed ; part of it he feeds to birds 

 on the neighboring fai'm. He keeps the 

 birds alive, for not one would have sur- 

 vived the winter without his care ; yet 

 when he comes in the fall with gun and 

 dog to take a part of what he has saved, 

 he finds a trespass notice on almost every 

 tree and post. The farmer who has done 

 nothing to save the birds, in great big 

 letters, says 'KEEP OFF,' and I wonder 

 who will care for these birds next year." 



Alfred C. West, writing in Recreation 

 for September, 1015, defends the fai-mer's 

 point of view thus : 



"The farmer is also interested in game 

 protection. He sees the young pheasants 

 in his meadows. When he is near he 

 makes a little side trip to see how they 

 are getting along. In the old brush lot he 

 sees an occasional rabbit scurrying down 

 the bushy path. In the woods he watches 

 the gray squirrels in play and their bick- 

 erings and thinks what a shame it is to kill 

 them. He hears the quail whistling and 

 the partridge drumming or sees the young 

 ducks swimming around the bend of the 

 creek and it seems good to be alive. A little 

 later the hunting season opens but the 

 farmer's work is pressing so that he can 

 not get out in the woods that day. He 

 hears the steady cannonading in woods, 

 meadow, swamp and brush lot. He 



sees the automobiles rush past his place 

 or stop in his yard, with or without 

 a request that he care for them 'for a 

 little while.' Perhaps a neighbor tele- 

 phones in that his stock are out in the 

 road where some party of 'sportsmen' has 

 left a gate open or perhaps even cut his 

 fence. It may be that a favorite cow 

 comes to milking time, blind in one eye or 

 bleeding all along the sides from the 

 charge of shot of a man who may have 

 been nervous or only drunk. A few days 

 later he may get a few hours when he can 

 go hunting, but everything is changed. 

 The young pheasants are all killed. The 

 squirrels can not be seen. Indeed, with 

 all his exact knowledge of the habits of 

 the game on his land he is indeed fortu- 

 nate if he can get one or two shots. If 

 he tries to protect himself under the tres- 

 pass laws, he finds that the courts will 

 not uphold him. * « * 



"All this brings us to a realization that 

 the game is decreasing largely because 

 the farmer feels that it is not to his in- 

 terest to have it do otherwise. It has 

 already been shown how the mere pres- 

 ence of game is often the cause of a 

 money loss to the farmer. * * * 



"How may the game be increased? It 

 will be evident to any one that the game 

 of the country can not be protected if the 

 farmers are not willing to give active 

 assistance in enforcing the game laws and 

 few farmers will give any active aid while 

 they are made to feel that a reduction in 

 the number of game animals on their lands 

 is a distinct advantage. * * * if the 

 farmers could have the benefit of a good 

 trespass law and could be allowed to get 

 profit in some way, if only by the sale of 

 hunting permits, from the presence of 

 game on their lands the disappearance of 

 the game could be stopped. The present 

 game laws seem to the farmers to have 

 been made by and in the interest of men 

 who want to get something for nothing 

 and let the farmer pay for it, and until 

 this condition is remedied laws may be 

 piled on laws hut the game will keep on 

 its present road to oblivion." 



