194 Game Survey of the North Central States 



The original scarcity of deer in the northern Lake States is supported by the 

 testimony of an old market hunter, who told Game Wardens Swift and Divine 

 that 40 years ago there were not enough deer at Clam Lake, Burnette County, 

 Wisconsin, to enable professional hunters to successfully supply a lumber camp. 



The converse of Shiras' testimony for the north is affirmed by Bogardus, who 

 says of the prairies (my italics) : 



"It is often supposed that it (the deer) likes best to range in the vast forests, 

 but I believe that to be a mistake. Deer are most fond of country in which there 

 are belts of timberland and brush interspersed with prairies and savannahs. Much 

 of that part of Illinois where I lived at first (Menard County) is somewhat of that 

 character. When I first went to the State (1857) deer were exceedingly plentiful. 

 I have seen . . . thirty in a herd, and men . . . told me they had seen 

 herds ... of seventy-five. In cold weather the deer went to the timber for 

 shelter. In warm weather they . . . spent some hours before and after noon- 

 day lying in the long grass of the prairies near sloughs." 



Early Deer Populations. In deer we find much more satisfactory evi- 

 dence than in turkey of what densities were attained by the original populations. 



Howe mentions a "drive" in Medina County, Ohio, on Christmas eve, 1808, 

 which netted 300 deer killed from 25 square miles, or 12 per square mile. Prob- 

 ably by no means all the deer on the area were bagged, so that a population con- 

 siderably higher than 12 per square mile is indicated. 



Carl Sandburg's biography of Abraham Lincoln states that in 1820 Noah 

 Major, one of the first settlers in Morgan County, Indiana, estimated there were 

 20,000 deer in the county. This reduces to 53 deer per square mile on the basis 

 of the present area an astonishing density (and incidentally the first published 

 game census in North America). This is a higher density than now exists on the 

 overstocked Kaibab Forest, supposedly the ultimate in deer abundance. 



These heavy original densities in the central part of the region, taken in con- 

 junction with the testimony of Bogardus that deer liked the prairie, and of Shiras 

 that they were absent on the north edge of the region, strongly suggests that the 

 cenral part of the region was the qualitative center of the original deer range. We 

 have already seen that this also is indicated for ruffed grouse and pinnated grouse. 



Present Populations and Kill ; Plants ; Trend. There is no longer 

 any soil capable of carrying 53 deer per square mile now habitable for deer. Deer 

 are crowded back into the poorer margins of the region; where they are now uni- 

 versally regarded as on the increase. Large southward encroachments are taking 

 place in Wisconsin, and probably in the other Lake States. Some of these extend 

 into thejvery edge of heavy farming districts. 



There is no census for the really heavy deer States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, 

 and Michigan. The known census figures are: 



