THE LEGITIMATE USE OF GAME 97 



instances of the shy wild turkey, wherein those 

 naturally wild and timid birds have come into a 

 protected tract of three hundred acres of cultivated 

 land, at Deep Lake, sixteen miles east of the settle- 

 ment of Everglade, on the west coast of Florida, 

 and are as tame as quails commonly become on 

 farms where they never are shot at. 



Under a sensible system of conservation, 50,000,- 

 000 upland game-birds might at this moment be 

 living on and around the farms, ranches, and other 

 cultivated lands of the United States, supplying 

 5,000,000 men and boys with annual hunting and 

 good food, without one cent of expense to anyone 

 save the cost of protection from improper slaughter. 



These same birds would devour an annual incre- 

 ment of insects and weed seeds that would mean an 

 immense additional benefit to the farmers, fruit- 

 growers and forest-owners of this country. 



But for half a century, folly and greed have 

 marched hand in hand. The people at large who 

 own the game in general, and the farmers who own 

 it in particular, have permitted a carnival of 

 slaughter of upland game-birds that was foolish, 

 wasteful and wicked. The market-gunners have 

 been permitted to slaughter the quail and grouse 

 by the barrel, wagon-load and carload, and ship it to 

 Chicago, St. Louis and other great markets, to be 

 sold, or to spoil unsold, as the case might be. A 

 volume might be written on the wholesale butchery 

 of American game for the markets, and other forms 



