CHAPTER VIII 



THE ORGANIZATION AND FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE 

 CONSERVATION DEPARTMENTS 



IT is much more important for the country member of 

 the legislature to come back home at the end of the session 

 with his name written on a bill changing the open season 

 for brook trout, than it is for him to have it on an impor- 

 tant bill relating to corporation finance. After all, there is 

 nothing strange about this situation. Wild life regulation 

 is and should be of vital concern to rural residents, for they 

 are the ones who would suffer first from unwise conserva- 

 tion policies. 



The membership of the legislature is drawn in large 

 measure from the rural districts. Patiently these rural 

 members sit through debates on municipal corporations, on 

 business taxation, trade practices and labor disputes, half 

 asleep, half awake, trying hard to understand what it is all 

 about. When it comes to dog licenses, they arouse them- 

 selves momentarily. Finally, when the game and fish laws 

 are reached, they wake up and get on their feet, for that is 

 a topic about which the farmers gathered on the front steps 

 of the country store are talking. 



As a result of this domination of the state legislature by 

 the rural constituencies, the game and fish laws tend to be 

 favorable to the interests of that group. In most states, 

 for example, licenses are not required of a resident land- 

 owner when hunting or fishing on his own property. Hunt- 

 ing or fishing after signs forbidding such trespass have been 

 posted is sometimes made a criminal as well as civil offense. 



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