A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 491 



of products of forest land. In the late fall in that State, they fatten 

 on oak and beech mast. During winter they subsist on buds and 

 twigs of most tree species. When food is scarce, especially during 

 periods of heavy snowfall, they subsist largely on laurel or rhodo- 

 dendron and the inner bark of trees. In spring and summer and 

 early fall they eat clover, vetches, weedy plants, berries, and fruits, 

 and browse. Deer are largely species of the forest. They are tra- 

 ditionally a part of the forest, and their existence is dependent upon 

 its presence. 



Cover is essential to the existence of wild life. Aldo Leopold, a 

 specialist in game management, in an article in the Journal of Forestry 

 for October 1931, entitled "Game Range", says that all animals 

 require from one to four types of coyer in their environment. This is 

 essential both for food and protection. Game species of low mobile 

 powers, according to Leopold, prefer as their abiding place an area 

 where various types of cover meet. For example, quail in the Central 

 States are most frequently found where farm woodland and cultivated 

 land adjoin. They require the forest cover for protection from natural 

 enemies and a haven into which they can fly to escape from cats, 

 snakes, and other ground enemies. Gradual reduction in cover by 

 grazing farm woodland in the Central States and by removal of 

 hedgerows and brush on the farms has been an important factor in 

 the serious depletion of the quail in that section. Evidence of this 

 importance of cover is shown by developments, as cited by Mr. 

 Leopold in his Game Survey of the North Central States. 



Forests and wooded lands have been obstacles over large areas to 

 the encroachments of agricultural settlement, and have thus tended 

 to preserve favorable environmental conditions for wild life, enabling 

 many important species to persist in numbers, where in contrast 

 many plains-dwelling species have been crowded out. Antelope, for 

 example, which once thronged the feeding grounds and watering 

 places of the Great Plains have been reduced to a mere fraction of 

 their former numbers. 



Although migratory water fowl, whose principal habitats are 

 marsh and lake areas, are not directly dependent upon the forest, 

 some species find food in forest mast, and further, the water supply 

 for many of the marshes and lakes used by ducks and geese is de- 

 pendent on maintenance of a forest cover on the headwaters of 

 tributary streams. Thus the forest contributes in an essential way 

 to their well-being. 



PRESENT ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL WILD-LIFE VALUES 

 WILD-LIFE POPULATION 



Reliable factual information regarding the full extent of our 

 wild-life resource is sadly lacking. Many States do not have esti- 

 mates of game population nor reliable figures of kill wilich might 

 serve as a basis for calculations of population. A few States, where 

 the importance of the game resource is recognized, have compiled 

 considerable data on both population and kill. Such information 

 for the most part pertains to the various species of deer, as these 

 animals are doubtless the most widely distributed and most hunted 

 big game species as well as those most commonly found in parks and 

 preserves. In the West the Forest Service, in cooperation with the 



