1912 AND FISHERIES COMMISSION. 231 



tians are receiving ever increasing attention, many individual states as 

 well as private individuals or firms having become interested in the pro- 

 duction of game on a large scale, and it may here be noted that a move- 

 ment of no little dimensions has arisen in the direction of still further 

 augmenting state and individual efforts in regard to the production of 

 game, it being claimed that the principle involved affords the soundest, 

 if not actually the only satisfactory, solution to the problem of per- 

 petuating the game of the country, placing game food within the reach 

 of the bulk of the population, and at the same time of securing such an 

 abundance of wild creatures that there will be an abundance of sport 

 for everyone without the necessity for irksome restrictions. It cannot 

 be denied that there is very considerable truth in this contention as a 

 whole, but it is apparent that until the game farm shall have made its 

 appearance in this Province and be producing considerable quantities of 

 game, there must remain the most urgent necessity for safeguarding the 

 wild creatures, and that under any conceivable conditions some measure, 

 at least, of protection to them will be found not only advisable but in- 

 dispensable. There is, moreover, an under-current of thought connected 

 with the widespread cultivation of game in which may ultimately be 

 found a menace to public rights and privileges in regard to hunting and 

 shooting. Some varieties of game can be more advantageously or easily 

 raised under semi-wild conditions, while under completely natural con- 

 ditions most indigenous game will thrive and multiply to an astonish- 

 ing extent if afforded more or less complete protection. Hence, under 

 the cloak of the production of game there will almost inevitably appear 

 the lean head of purely selfisli interests, clamouring to be apportioned 

 the shooting rights over large areas of public lands and claiming to be 

 a public benefactor in the direction of game protection and propagation, 

 while the public are excluded from participating in the sport to be found 

 over the territory allotted or leased to it. The legitimate game farm, 

 even though it be of some considerable size, and the small preserve in a 

 country thoroughly opened up and under cultivation are one matter; 

 the alienation of public shooting rights over large areas of public lands 

 is altogether another. Consequently, while encouraging the game farm 

 and bowing to necessity in the case of the small preserve in populous 

 sections of the Province, no consideration or argument should be allowed 

 to affect the principle, fortunately so firmly rooted in Ontario, that 

 sport on public lands is the heritage of the people at large, or to coun- 

 tenance any departure therefrom in regard to the vast areas of Crown 

 lands in the wilder sections of the Province. 



There are in various portions of Ontario areas of wild and rough 

 land from whicli the timber has been largely removed, but which will 

 never prove of much service to the community in the matter of agricul- 

 ture. Such areas will in many cases be found to be suitable to the pur- 

 poses of deer farming. Deer are comparatively prolific. The rutting 

 season occurs in the fall or early winter and the period of gestation is 



