86 



plete destruction of the deer it will seem such a radical 

 measure as to lose weight. I speak as one who has suffered, 

 damage myself from the deer, 



A Member. Speaking about it being too radical, I 

 would like to tell my little story. I have got two and a half 

 acres of peach orchard up on the hills in the woods. There 

 ds a wire fence six feet high and some six or seven years th^3 

 deer have been eating the young apple trees, chewing them 

 off, gnawing them and eating the buds off and I have had 

 my men in and they have seen the deer, seen them doing tha- 

 damage, and I have had the men in there to go and look, dif- 

 ferent men, seven or eight men, to see what the total dam- 

 age was, and they say it is twenty or thirty dollars like 

 that; and I had the town clerk and the selectmen go and 

 view the premises and there was a gunner that had a talk: 

 with this selectmen that they didn't do any damage, that 

 they only ate a little grass down there. He goes down in 

 Maine every year and hunts and brings them home and he- 

 says they wouldn't do any damage, wouldn't eat the trees. 

 But the men that work for me say they do and I can see for 

 myself two or three hundred apple trees, three or four hun- 

 dred peach trees. They keep them nipped off as fast as they 

 grow, until they die. There is a wire fence around there six 

 feet high and you can see where they have gone out, against 

 that wire. 



The wire is stapled to the trees around this woods, and. 

 they have jumped the staples out for five or six trees right 

 along. You would think some of the hair flew after they 

 went out. They sleep in the day time but they do their dam- 

 age at night, travel around nights a good deal because I have- 

 seen them evenings out around. I have put in a bill down at 

 the state house, the state stocks your farm (you pay the rent 

 and the state stocks it with what game they have a mind to 

 — but I put in a bill for $25 that these men said was the dam- 

 age, and I got hold of $5. 



Mr. Sowerby. I have four deer every other day now 

 and I have been hoping that they would not do any damage, 

 and I go every day to see if they do any damage, and up to 

 the present time they have done none. Last year there was 

 a party in Marlboro that had some damage and I was one of 

 the men to go and assess the damage. I think it was $45 or 

 $50 and the state paid it without any more talk. He got the 

 money within three weeks. I don't see but what the state ?s: 

 doing its part. 



