x INTRODUCTION 



peals to legislators must possess immediate in- 

 trinsic or money value, and the value must 

 be patent and easily seen. So long, therefore, 

 as legislators insisted that conservation was a 

 theory of sentimentalists, and declined to see 

 the practical side of it, nothing under the wide 

 dome of heaven could induce them to offer 

 legal protection to either forests or game ani- 

 mals, and this shortsightedness has directly 

 led to profligate waste. 



It was a long and tedious undertaking to 

 educate our lawmakers to appreciate the fact 

 that deer, elk, mountain sheep, and other game 

 animals really are of intrinsic value and might 

 prove of decided profit to the State. Hardly 

 yet have the legislators of many of our States 

 come to a full realization of the fact that wild 

 tracts of country not capable of agricultural 

 development, or not at present so utilized, may 

 support game animals that will be of the same 

 relative value to the State as cattle are to the 

 individual ranchman. 



In consequence of this lack of legislative in- 

 terest, in spite of the long educational campaign 

 in game protection, our game laws are still in 

 the crude formative or partially developed 

 stage, and game protection is largely a matter 

 of political juggling and political favor; and 



