THE AX<;LI:K AND HI. \TSM\\ 225 



mated. The stockmen, being fundamentally interested in 

 game, can, through their local and national advisory boards, 

 secure the protection of their vital interests in helping to 

 shape the whole policy of game refuges. 



"The interest of stockgrowers in wild game is not a 

 mere sentimental one. There is a privately-owned fenced 

 range in Aew Mexico containing one of the largest herds of 

 antelope remaining in the, Southwest. They are carefully 

 protected, and their presence on that range adds materially 

 to the selling price of the outfit. Sportsmen and stockmen 

 have at least one vital interest in common: the extermina- 

 tion of predatory animals, which prey indiscriminately on 

 wild game and domestic stock. In New Mexico the State 

 game protective association, with a membership of 1,200 

 sportsmen, is actively engaged in the campaign against pre- 

 datory animals. Wherever there is any game sportsmen 

 and stockmen will unite in a relentless warfare against these 

 enemies of valuable animals. The exclusion of hunting 

 from certain areas of range will in itself be a benefit to 

 stock interests. 



"Game conservationists do not wish or expect to have 

 the National Forests overrun with great herds of wild game. 

 They do wish and hope to assure its preservation and to give 

 a reasonable 1 amount of wholesome sport to the average 

 American citizen. Any surplus of game animals is easily re- 

 movable. The killing of game can be regulated on a volume 

 basis, as the amount of stock on a given range is now regu- 

 lated on a volume basis. There will always be a hundred 

 guns to every deer; if a surplus of game on game refuges 

 should ever menace the live stock industry (a menace now 

 inconceivable) the remedy would lie in permitting the sur- 

 plus to be killed. 



"Any man interested in the preservation of the magnif- 

 icent game animals of our western mountains will admit 

 that the present protective system is a failure. The game 

 is going. Much of it is near the vanishing point. Long- 

 closed seasons are difficult to obtain, and are far less de- 



