132 Game Survey of the North Central States 



managed and unmanaged pheasant lands, and gave preferential privileges to the 

 former in the shape of a 30-day open season. Before becoming entitled to this 

 privilege, the owner or leasee was required to apply for a license, which was 

 granted after a game officer had certified to the release of a certain number of 

 pheasants. The license authorized the killing of half this number, while renewal 

 was contingent on satisfactory operation of the licensed area. 



This statute was of course applicable only where artificial propagation or 

 direct purchase of pheasants from commercial game farms produced the necessary 

 stock to be released. 



About the same time the farmers of Williamstown township, in Ingham 

 County, evolved a solution of their farm trespass problem. They pooled their 

 shooting privileges, posted the township as a block, provided a constable to en- 

 force the posting, and issued hunting tickets to each farmer-member represent- 

 ing the estimated number of hunters his land could carry simultaneously. Such 

 member was free to keep his allotment of tickets for his own use, or give them 

 away as a courtesy to his friends, or sell them, but of course he was responsible 

 to his neighbors for seeing that no ticket fell into the hands of an irresponsible 

 person. So far the farmers have preferred to keep or give away their tickets, 

 rather than to sell them. 



Each ticket entitles the bearer to hunt anywhere within the township. 

 The net result of this Williamston pool is to limit the number of hunters 

 on any one day to fixed maximum, and to eliminate, more or less, any in- 

 dividuals personally unknown to any member, or judged to be irresponsible. The 

 pool as such of course provides for no game management. It deals solely with 

 trespass and hunting. 



The Ingham County chapter of the Izaak Walton League, with the help of the 

 State division, has now proposed to the Williamston pool, and to other town- 

 ships which are forming pools of the same kind, to finance food and cover im- 

 provements on the pooled areas, by paying each individual farmer for the food, 

 cover, or other management measures agreed upon for his individual farm and 

 installed thereon. In other words, the sportsmen contract to pay the farmer for 

 the labor or materials he expends in management. 



A management plan specifying the measures needed for each farm is being 

 laid out by a technical committee representing the sportsman, the farmer, the State 

 agricultural college, and the State university. The management plan will include 

 a system of leased refuges to conserve the seed stock. 



If this plan is carried out, it will constitute a system of management com- 

 plete in jill essential respects, except that the total kill will be only indirectly 

 regulated through bag limits and hunting tickets. The sportsman contributing the 

 funds will have no exclusive privileges, but will still be dependent upon receiving 

 the courtesy of a ticket from some farmer friend. When he gets a ticket, how- 

 ever, he will, if the management is skillful, have pheasants to hunt, and a place 

 to hunt them. 



