A Sportsman's Views. 



ON. MARK NORRIS of Grand Rapids is not only 

 an enthusiastic sportsman, but has given a good 

 deal of thought to practical forestry matters. In 

 a letter to the President of the Michigan Forestry 

 Commission he says : 

 "I think you will find that the sportsmen throughout the 

 State will be unanimous supporters in any well-devised meth- 

 ods looking to the preservation of the forests and the refor- 

 estation of denuded areas within the State. All true sports- 

 men are ardent supporters of the Forestry Commission. They 

 know that the preservation of the wild fauna of a State is 

 and must continue to be dependent upon the continued exist- 

 ence of the forests. They have learned by experience that the 

 removal of the forest dries up the streams, and tends to 

 destroy the fishing, and that the same cause also tends to 



destroy the haunts and feeding places of the wild animals 

 which range the woods. If these are to be preserved for future 

 generations, an area in which their life may be maintained 

 must be preserved. Perhaps the time has not yet arrived when 

 the public is prepared to adopt in this country the methods 

 used in other countries, notably in Canada, by which the 

 waters and forests in the charge of the State are leased to 

 fishermen and hunters, who undertake the preservation of 

 the same at their expense, and pay the State a rental in addi- 

 tion. This is one of the things on which public sentiment will 

 have to be further aroused before such measures will be 

 popular or can be adopted, but it would seem to me as if it 

 would be no more than right to so form any measures 

 adopted for the preservation of the forests as that such a sys- 

 tem could be used when the time was ripe therefor. In 

 Canada such measures are productive of large revenue to the 

 State, and at the same time serve to conserve the fish and 

 animals as well as the forests." 



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