222 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



should be exempt from taxation while being 

 improved, under the German system of taxing the 

 crop after the improvements have been completed 

 and lumbering begins. 



In short, the salvation of our wild life that is so 

 rapidly vanishing can only be accomplished by the 

 game farm and the game refuge, state and private ; 

 and everyone owning even a small tract of semi- 

 wild land should help the cause of conservation. 



Let each one do his share to restore the balance 

 which man has so rudely and persistently upset. 

 Man ruthlessly destroyed the larger carnivora until 

 the smaller species, less useful and less dangerous 

 to him, increased abnormally, thereby destroying 

 the bird life so essential in keeping in check the 

 insect life. If we reduce the number of small car- 

 nivora to normal, the bird life will quickly respond, 

 the injurious insect life will promptly decrease and 

 useful vegetation will increase correspondingly. 



Let the waste areas be peopled with the animal 

 and bird life of a hundred years ago. Let the 

 forests, now still, echo with the whistle of the deer 

 and the bugle of the elk, our waterways answer to 

 the honk of the wild goose, and our farms will 

 resound to the chorus of myriads of song-birds! 

 Then, when the "red gods call," we can go; and we 

 shall be a stronger, hardier, better race through our 

 appreciation and enjoyment of the wild life we have 

 helped to reinstate. 



