246 Game Survey of the North Central States 



All of these forests are under organized administration, usually by technically 

 trained men. All of them might be said to be under some rudimentary degree 

 of game management, and this could easily be intensified and increased. 



To this forest area must be added about 156,000 acres in the Upper Missis- 

 sippi Refuge, and about 150,000 acres in State refuges and public shooting grounds, 

 mostly in Michigan. All taken together, there appear to be about 2,275,000 

 acres of land under public administration, and either managed for game, or 

 readily placed under game management. 



Since the great bulk of the area ultimately under public game management 

 will doubtless be in forested regions, we may compare this figure first of all with 

 the total forested area (excluding woodlot forests) . The region contains about 

 68,000,000 acres of forest land. It would appear therefore that about 3 per cent 

 of the area suitable for public game management is in some degree being ad- 

 ministered for game at the present time. 



A much larger percentage is actually under public ownership in the form 

 of reverted tax lands, scattered State holdings, and the like, but such lands can- 

 not be placed under management until consolidated into solid blocks and placed 

 under field administration. 



Fire Control. Space forbids more than a brief description of this im- 

 portant subject, and its many ramifications with the game problem. 



The first question of fact affecting game management is the extent to which 

 forest fires still prevail. Forest fires are least under control in Missouri, where 

 the larger part of the forested areas burn yearly, and sometimes even twice a year. 

 Some of these fires are deliberate, some burn by suffrance, practically all are man- 

 caused. The State maintains no widespread control organization. 



In the Lake States forest fires still bum considerable areas in drouth years. 



The greatest aggregate damage to game, however, probably arises not from 

 true forest fires in the Forest Belts, but from the spring and fall fires in marsh- 

 lands, fence rows, and woodlots in the Agricultural Belt. These are not yet 

 usually regarded as harmful, but they harm game more than forest fires do be- 

 cause the latter are under partial public control, whereas the former are still as 

 customary as in the days of Daniel Boone, and occur where there is already a 

 radical shortage of game cover. 



The organized burning of roadsides by highway departments and railroad 

 right-of-ways by railroad companies further lessens the wintering and nesting cover 

 in the Agricultural Belt. As States we pay our highway officials to destroy what 

 we pay our game officials to maintain. Where highway clearing and burning is 

 necessary for highway purposes, it is of course justifiable, but many a brushy 

 fence row, especially along secondary roads, is burned or cleared more often or 

 more completely than seems necessary. State game officials would often create 

 more game by arranging a modus vivendi with highway departments, than by 

 planting expensive game stock on denuded land. 



