4 h Game of any Value to the Farmer t 



Gladstone addressed meetings largely composed of farm- 

 ers, recommending the cultivation of fruit. Protection 

 was suggested by other prominent men ; sheep-runs for 

 Scotland were recommended. It does not appear that 

 any of these theories or suggestions commended them- 

 selves to the practical good sense of the people. It is 

 now well known that the reduced value in farm lands in 

 the United Kingdom caused game-producing to be de- 

 veloped to the very highest extent. The game finds a 

 purchaser for an estate at a high figure if it comes into the 

 market, and the shooting can always be let, if the owner 

 wants money for as much as its gross annual rental would 

 bring. A farm of 11000 acres near Thedford, Norfolk, 

 England, has recently been let for $20,000 for eight weeks 

 shooting, an equal amount being paid annually for the 

 property for agricultural purposes. In the same neigh- 

 bourhood 2,500 acres rents for $5,000 for the shooting 

 only. In Scotland, lands which fell to the value of one 

 shilling per acre rental, are now of the value of one 

 pound, $5 per acre rental for game purposes. In Ireland 

 the rabbit was introduced, and $3,500 per annum is now 

 paid for the rabbit shooting on a tract at all former times 

 waste and valueless. 



That recent legislation in Ontario further limiting the 

 " close season," and prohibiting the export and even the 

 sale of game, should be so soon followed by the appoint- 

 ment of Commissioners to take evidence and report, in- 

 dicates that the extinction of game is now feared in 

 responsible quarters, and that thirty years of same legis- 

 lation has been a failure. i 



On the one hand we have Great Britain with a limited 

 rural area and a dense population, exporting game, abound- 

 ing in game, and introducing and making indigenous the 

 valuabTe game birds of (/ther countries, while on this side of 

 the Atlantic, with an immense rural area and scattered set- 

 tlements, where game and fish but recently abounded, 

 their restoration and reproduction are under considera- 

 tion. 



