xiv BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



for their regulation, begun by your secretary several years 

 ago, resulted last year in a very satisfactory law, allowing 

 the farmer to kill them in his orchards or crops, with any 

 weapon at hand, and also allowing a short open season in 

 the five western counties, when they could be hunted with 

 shot guns. Something like 2,000 deer were killed during 

 the year by farmers and hunters, without a single fatality 

 to human being's. The Commissioners on Fisheries and 

 Game last year estimated, at my request, the number of deer 

 in the State at about 8,000, and their annual rate of increase 

 at about 40 per cent, so it will be seen that those killed were 

 less than the natural increase. Thus the relief secured is 

 not as great as it would appear on first consideration. There 

 will undoubtedly be a protest against another open season. 

 Sentimentalists will urge that the deer form a pleasing fea- 

 ture of the landscape and should be protected at all times, but 

 it is better for the community at large that they be kept 

 within reasonable numbers, rather than that they be allowed 

 to increase without check, and ravage our orchards and fields 

 to the great detriment of agriculture. A business with an an- 

 nual output of upwards of seventy millions of dollars deserves 

 consideration before a mere sentiment. It will also be urged 

 that it is cruel to allow them to be wounded with shot guns, 

 in many instances to die in the woods, and this is to be re- 

 gretted, but it is better that a few deer die in this manner 

 rather than that one human being should be killed by the 

 rifle in the hands of a deer hunter. 



Changes in the Board. 

 The changes in the membership of the Board during the 

 year came about entirely through the expirations of the terms 

 of various members. Members retiring because of expira- 

 tion of terms of service are: Dr. Austin Peters, formerly 

 Chief of the Cattle Bureau, after eight years of service ; Wm. 

 B. Avery of the Deerfield Valley Agricultural Society, after 

 three years of service ; Henry S. Pease of the Highland Agri- 

 cultural Society, after six years of service ; W. A. Harlow 

 of the Hillside Agricultural Society, after three years of 

 service, and Isaac Damon of the Middlesex South Agricul- 

 tural Society, after eighteen years of service. 



