260 Game Survey of the North Central States 



The legislative projects show extreme diversity in skill and leadership. In 

 some States the sportsmen have selected a single well-chosen objective, such as 

 the reorganization of the conservation department, and directed their combined 

 strength toward its accomplishment, often through a period of years. The high- 

 est grade of volunteer legal, technical, and political skill has been mobilized, 

 and the resulting enactments constitute permanently usable foundations for build- 

 ing up State leadership in conservation work. 



In other States great quantities of useful energy have been expended in minor 

 tinkering of the game laws, and even in factional disputes. 



The local work of sportsmen's associations shows a like diversity in skill and 

 effectiveness. Some have tended to become merely social clubs, others have suc- 

 cessfully executed valuable educational campaigns and established refuges, plant- 

 ings, rearing ponds, winter feeding stations, and the like. Plantings of pheasants 

 and fish preponderate very heavily in the present programs of local activity. 



It is worthy of note that with the exception of the Ingham County project of 

 the Michigan Izaak Walton League (described in the pheasant chapter) no original 

 work has been done toward the establishment of a productive relationship between 

 sportsmen and farmers. This would seem to be the most suitable of all activities 

 for a sportsmen's organization. In fact, no other kind of agency is fitted to un- 

 dertake it at all. The neglect of this vital opportunity is possibly in part re- 

 sponsible for the recent decline in volume of the sportsmen's movement. It may 

 at least be true that to initiate a really vital and suitable activity of this kind would 

 serve to recoup the recent losses in membership. 



It is also worthy of note that until very recently sportsmen's organizations 

 have not interested themselves in the promotion of fact-finding through research. 

 Such projects are now being sponsored by Wisconsin, Michigan, and Missouri 

 organizations. 



Other Organizations. One peculiarity of the sportsmen's movement has 

 been its reluctance to seek the co-operation of other more or less parallel con- 

 servation bodies. Each of the States contains organizations, often powerful, de- 

 voted to the promotion of forestry, bird study, country life, better agriculture, 

 preservation of landscape beauty, and other subjects which must eventually be 

 dovetailed with game management and with the recreational use of game re- 

 sources. The locations of the State headquarters of some of these organizations 

 are indicated on Map 21. 



In addition there are the manifold farmer organizations, which may collec- 

 tively be designated as granges, and which represent the economic interest of the 

 landowner. Lumbermen, stockmen, and the pulp and paper industry, likewise 

 maintain organizations which parallel the granges. 



The co-operation of all these almost incredibly numerous bodies will ulti- 

 mately be necessary for the solution of the game problem, but the organized sports- 

 men are not as yet in touch with them. 



