Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 



total of millions. In the Sacramento Valley four men have killed 700 

 geese in a day. The "bull hunters" of Merced County often kill over 

 a hundred ducks at a single discharge. Nearly every day during the 

 hunting season at Los Banos a drayload of ducks goes away by express,. 

 packed in gunny sacks, the legal limit 35 ducks in each sack. 



Of course, this valuable resource will soon disappear under such. 

 onslaughts. Of course, the ''Game Hogs" should be suppressed, the 

 game commission should be upheld, the laws should be enforced, so that 

 wild fowl will not entirely disappear from our inland waters. 



The same things may be said of our fishes. It does not seem possible 

 that so delicious and valuable a fish as the salmon would be killed and 

 used for such gross purpose as fertilizer; yet in the early days of the 

 northwest the farmers planted a splendid salmon under each hill of 

 their hop fields, to enrich the soil. In 1906 the Alaska Guano Company 

 converted 18,000 barrels of salmon and 33,500 barrels of herring into 

 fertilizer and sold it. 



The heroic efforts of the Fish Commissioners can hardly hope to keep 

 pace with the reckless and illegal fishing of the fish hog and the market 

 fisherman. [E. H.] 



FUTURE OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



One of the wisest and best informed men of our country is President Van 

 Hise of the University of Wisconsin. Since this work has been in press 

 (June, 1909) he has printed in the World's Work Magazine a compre- 

 hensive article on Conservation, which closes as follows: 



' ' It would be interesting, but idle, to prophesy as to the changes in our 

 social structure which will result when people begin to be pinched by 

 meager soil, by lack of sufficient coal and wood. The people of that time 

 will doubtless solve their problems as best they may, and any specula- 

 tions we might make at this time would certainly be far from future 

 realization, but that the problems of pinching economy will confront our 

 descendants is beyond all question ; and, therefore, the paramount duty 

 remains to us to transmit to our descendants the resources which nature 

 has bequeathed to us as nearly undiminished in amount as is possible, 

 consistent with living a rational and frugal life. Now that we have 

 imposed upon us the responsibility of knowledge, to do less than this 

 would be a base communal crime." 



