264 Game Survey of the North Central States 



Game research need not be confined, however, to the agricultural colleges 

 and larger universities. Each of the north central States has in addition from 

 three or four to a dozen smaller colleges, independent museums, biological labora- 

 tories, normal schools, or other institutions already engaged in biological work, 

 and competent to investigate some appropriate project in game conservation. 

 Many of these institutions are supported by public funds, and all are responsive 

 to public interest in the solution of any particular public problem. 



It is merely plain common sense that conservation organizations and State 

 conservation departments should attempt to interest all these institutions in game 

 research. It is not at all uncommon for such institutions to be actually looking 

 for things to work on which have both a local and a scientific significance. It is 

 also merely common sense for State game officials to seek the help of their State- 

 supported institutions in finding the answers to the biological game problems with 

 which they deal every day, and which they cannot answer themselves. 



Research Projects. A very small fraction of the institutions competent 

 to help have as yet made even a start on the game problems of the north central 

 region, nor has anybody asked them to do so. Almost all of them conduct 

 biological research as a contribution to science, but few of them have seen the op- 

 portunity for applied science in the game field. But a start has been made. In 

 1927, to the best of my information, only one institution in the north central 

 region had even a single man conducting research directly applicable to game man- 

 agement. Table 57 indicates that at the present time about 14 men are so en- 

 gaged, and the number seems to be rapidly increasing. 



In addition to projects bearing directly on game management, much purely 

 scientific work is being bent in directions valuable to the future development of 

 game. For example, the Baldwin Bird Research Laboratory at Gates Mills, 

 Ohio, is beginning to explore the physiology of birds, a subject still obscured in 

 nearly total darkness. Without knowledge of physiology, the more "practical" 

 investigations of their diseases, foods, production, and relation to environment 

 must ultimately end in blind alleys. 



Many volumes would not suffice to describe the scientific researches which 

 repose on the shelves of our university libraries, and which are potentially valu- 

 able to game conservation in this region, but which cannot be used until the 

 hiatus between the library and the land is filled in. We have collected, largely at 

 public expense, a million bricks for our conservation structure, but there they lie 

 in idle piles, all for lack of a little mortar and the will to build. The "pure" 

 scientisris too absorbed in more bricks to tell the public what they are for. The 

 "practical" sportsman and the crusading protectionist have been alike oblivious 

 to any need for bricks. 



Extension. Many facts on how to make land produce game are already 

 known, but each one is usually known to only a few persons. 



