29 



BULLETIN OF 



Massachusetts Board of Agriculture. 



THE FARMER'S INTEREST IN GAME PROTECTION. 



By Edward Howe Forbush, State Ornithologist of Massachusetts. 



Introduction. 



It is unfortunate that so many farmers evince little or no interest in 

 game protection. Some regard game laws as of no advantage to the 

 farmer, but rather as class legislation for the benefit of the sportsman. 

 Nevertheless, the protection of game affects the agriculturists more 

 vitally than any other element of our population. The farmers own 

 the greater part of the land, and the game is more accessible to them 

 than to any other class, for they live upon the land where the game is. 

 Game conservation is advocated under our present system not solely 

 to furnish sport for a limited number of individuals, but to protect the 

 useful species of birds and mammals for the benefit of the whole 

 people. Rational game protection should so work out as to restrict 

 injurious species to some extent, to protect the land owner against 

 law-breaking, trespassing hunters, and to create a community of 

 interest between the farmer and the sportsman. The principle that 

 the game is the property of the State is now well established in this 

 country, and has been sustained by the higher courts; but by means 

 of laws against trespass, which have been enacted simultaneously 

 with the game laws, the farmer has been given practical control of 

 the game so long as it remains on his land, and the exclusive privilege 

 of hunting it there during the open season. In Massachusetts he 

 is even allowed by law at any time to kill deer that are injuring his 

 crops, and also to collect damages from the State for such injuiy. 

 Game laws tend to limit the number of hunters and to shorten the 

 season during which hunting is legal. They also protect most insect- 

 eating birds at all times, and abolish the trapping and netting of 

 game. Were it not for these laws, the farmer would be continually 

 annoyed by the tramping of hunters through his fields at all seasons, 

 the tearing down of his pasture walls and fences and the shooting of 

 birds in the nesting season. 



Some game birds are very valuable to the farmer as insect and 

 weed destroyers; some game mammals, on the contrary, are some- 



