448 With Rod and Gun in New England 



" From the beginning our records show an earnest, persistent and dis- 

 interested endeavor on the part of the association to secure such laws as 

 would tend to the preservation and increase of our useful food fishes for 

 all the people of the Commonwealth. 



"Year after year, committees from our association have gone to the 

 legislature and asked for wholesome legislation for the preservation of 

 our fish and game. Year after year those committees have succeeded, 

 little by little, until at last our laws are beginning to assume an effective 

 condition. Those laws today are by no means what they should be, but 

 they are infinitely better than they were when the work of this association 

 began. 



" But our efforts have not ended with securing better laws and attend- 

 ing to their enforcement. Three years ago the association decided to 

 enlarge its sphere of action, and entered upon the work of introducing into 

 the Commonwealth new species and varieties of game birds, and thus far 

 we have imported and set free in various localities throughout the State 

 2,200 birds, and for that purpose have expended no less than $1,500. 



" There seems to be no reasonable doubt that the effect of our stringent 

 o-ame laws has been to increase both the fish and the game of our State; 

 but the experience of our officers, gathered in the discharge of their duty, 

 shows us very plainly that those laws still need amendments and additions. 

 " Our success in the introduction of new varieties of game birds into the 

 State, brings forcibly to our minds the question whether the association 

 ought not to attempt something further in the matter of re-stocking our 

 streams with trout and other useful food fishes. 



" One of the cardinal principles of our association is the dissemination 

 of information upon fish and game culture and fish and game protection; 

 and the degree of unfamiliarity with those subjects which we encounter 

 whenever we attempt to secure some wholesome legislation, leads to the 

 conclusion that we have still another broad field for useful work. 



" Ignorance and selfishness are two of the worst obstacles which we 

 have to encounter in the prosecution of our labors. If we can only succeed 

 in convincing the people at large that we are laboring, not for the gratifi- 

 cation of our own selfish desires, but for the broader and higher purpose 

 of benefiting the whole community, we shall make those people our allies 

 in the enforcement of our laws, instead of enemies, arrayed in hostile ranks 

 against us at every step in our progress. 



" The local fish and game associations, which are springing up all around 

 us, are another powerful agency in our behalf. I do not mean those asso- 

 ciations whose members, on a given day, array themselves in opposing 

 forces, and start out to see which side can outdo the other in the indis- 

 criminate slaughter of birds and animals, — a most barbarous and unhal- 

 lowed sport, — -but those associations whose aims and purposes lie in the 



