8 FOREST OUTINGS 



The restoration of abounding native stocks of wildlife in the forests, on 

 upland range, in the water, by the water, and on the water is a most 

 important part of the multiple-use policy under which the national forests 

 are operated. In many parts of our country where the game had been 

 starved and shot almost into extinction, where the waters had been fished 

 out, and where no birds sang, wildlife is coming back now, and fishing is 

 getting good again. 



Much remains to be done toward a fuller repopulation and a proper pro- 

 tection of native wildlife. The United States Department of Agriculture is 

 but one of many agencies, public and private, that are taking the necessary 

 first steps, more or less together, to restore to the extent possible under 

 modern conditions the wildlife which was so highly important in America's 

 past. 



Game can come back fast: In some places deer have so multiplied 

 as to become a sort of animal weed, wandering. They are devouring herbage 

 and cover, inducing soil erosion, starving to death. Upward of 5 million 

 deer were abroad in this land at the time of the last governmental wildlife 

 census covering all lands, in August 1939. In some places the hunting 

 season and bag limit have been extended, considerably, in order to keep 

 the deer from wrecking what is left of cover crops and soil. 



This fact raises differences of thought and emotion, highly pitched. 

 Those who delight in the sight of deer, poised, quivering, or leaping for 

 cover, and press a camera trigger, or make notes, cry protest against car- 

 nage. Those who tremble with pleasure, or "buck fever," then steady them- 

 selves, and press gun triggers, respond to instincts no less primitive or deep 

 seated, differently. The only point to be made here, in opening, is that 

 both sorts of men, and groups of men, experience at the moment wild deer 

 are sighted a healing sense of freedom and rapture, a split second of primal 

 delight. The pressures and constraints of civilization fall from their minds 

 and backs; they are almost as free, for a few quick breaths, as the deer they 

 note, photograph, or kill. 



The pleasures that the national forests can offer the people are widely 

 various. They are simple pleasures, in the main. The aim is to keep them 

 simple, inexpensive, and as nearly as possible accessible to all. There are 



