SCIENCE 



NEW YORK, APRIL 34, 1891. 



GAMIS-PRESERVATION IN GERMANY.' 



Observant Americans, travelling by rail throug-h Ger- 

 many during the late summer or autumn months, ai-e often, 

 astonished by the abundance of hares, partridges, and pheas- 

 ants, which are to be seen in the fields and thickets along 

 the railways, or by roe-buck- — from two to a dozen or more 

 together — feeding in pastures and meadows, and scurrying 

 into the adjacent woods on approach of the train. This 

 surprise is usually augmented when, at some country station, 

 the traveller sees a party of sportsmen returning to town 

 with the proceeds of a day's shooting. Remembering the 

 denuded condition of the older and more thickly settled por- 

 tions of our own country in all that respects field and wood- 

 land game, the impression is apt to come home to tlie trans- 

 atlantic tourist that in this respect, at least, the Germans 

 manage better than we have done. In fish-culture and the 

 skilful breeding of many kinds of animals, the Americans are 

 unsurpassed, if equalled, by any people of Europe; but, in 

 making marketable game a plentiful product of fields that 

 have been cultivated since many centuries before America 

 was discovered, the Germans have, it would seem, set an ex- 

 ample which we may study with interest, if not profit. 



It is proposed in the present report to consider the German 

 system of game protection and management from a purely 

 economic standpoint. Aside from all consideration of shoot- 

 ing as a fascinating, healthful sport for men who are ordi- 

 narily confined to the wear and fatigue of city life, there is 

 the practical question whether the growth of wild game may 

 not, under proper conditions, be made to add in America, as 

 it does so largely in Europe, to the annual cash product of 

 fields and woodlands, even in the most thickly settled States 

 and in the vicinity of large cities. 



It was but natural that a people busy with the task of 

 clearing and settling a country so vast as ours should, until 

 within recent years, have regarded game birds and animals 

 as part of the spontaneous product of the land, the property 

 of whoever might take the trouble to pursue and kill them. 

 Not within many centuries has any such easy-going indiffer- 

 ence on that subject prevailed in these older nations of 

 Europe. From the days when the game belonged to the 

 crown, and hunting was the exclusive privilege of the king 

 and the nobility, game birds and animals have been recog- 

 nized as property not less tangible and defensible than do- 

 mestic poultry or cattle. 



With the imperial preserves of Germany and the vast 

 estates of the wealthier aristocracy, where stags and pheasants 

 are reared and tended by liveried game-keepers for wholesale 

 slaughter on princely hunting-days, the present report has, 

 for obvious reasons, no concern. All that belongs to a 

 social and political condition so remote from our own as to 

 divest it of all practical interest in this connection. But the 

 imperial and grand ducal preserves cover but a small pro- 

 portion of German territory. The vast bulk of it is possessed 

 by individual farmers and communes, and is leased, so far 

 ' Report by Coasul-Ganeral Mason of Frankfort, dated Jan. 3, 1891. 



as shooting privileges are concerned, to individuals or small 

 clubs of professional and business men in the neighboring 

 towns and cities for an annual rental, which amounts in the 

 aggregate to many millions of marks, and constitutes one of 

 the important revenues of the agricultural class. In no re- 

 spect ar3 the provincial governments of Germany more 

 jealous of national interference than in regard to their game- 

 laws. Prussia, Bavaria, Hesse, WUrtemburg, and Baden 

 have each their separate code for the protection of game and 

 the regulation of shooting privileges; but, as it will be im- 

 possible to consider them all within reasonable space, we 

 may fairly select as an example the code of Prussia, which 

 is as fair and intelligently framed as any, and will serve to 

 illustrate the system which has proved so successful and ad- 

 vantageous in this countiy. 



One of the important provisions of the Prussian code is 

 that which permits any proprietor of landed property to kill 

 game at proper seasons in any j)art of his premises that may 

 be enclosed by a fence or wall, but which denies him this 

 privilege on any piece of unenclosed land which is less than 

 two hundred acres in extent. In the latter case the game on 

 the farmer's land reverts to the care of the commune in 

 which he lives, which rents the shooting privileges of all 

 such territory within its limits, crediting to each farmer his 

 due share of the aggregate rental, proportionate to the area 

 of his land. 



As nearly all farming-lands in Germany are owned in 

 small tracts by peasant farmers who live in villages, and as 

 such lands are rarely or never enclosed by any semblance 

 of hedge or fence, it follows that most field-shooting is leased 

 by the communal authorities at prices which vary from 

 twenty to seventy-five cents per acre annually, thus adding 

 an additional crop, so to speak, to the yearly product of the 

 ground. These shooting privileges are leased usually for 

 terms of six, nine, or twelve years. Competition is by auction 

 at the office of the communal burgomaster, and the lease goes 

 to the highest bidder who can furnish satisfactory guaranties 

 as to financial responsibility. The lessee then becomes re- 

 sponsible, not only for the proper care of the game in the 

 fields and woods covered by his lease, but also for whatever 

 damage the game may inflict upon growing crops. Should 

 the hares injure the beets and turnips, or the deer from the 

 adjacent forest trespass upon the wheat or rye fields, the 

 farmer summons the two communal assessors appointed for 

 that purpose, who examine the premises, and estimate the 

 amount of damage which the lessee of the shooting is re- 

 quired to pay. If he finds the tax excessive, be may nomi- 

 nate a third member of the board, and call for a re-appraise- 

 ment of the damage. The lessee also employs a local game- 

 keeper, who earns a yearly salary ranging from two hundred 

 dollars to three hundred dollars, and whose business it is to 

 look after the game, kill foxes, hawks, and other carnivorous 

 creatures, and prevent poaching. 



Nothing could better illustrate the universal respect for 

 the rights of property in this country and the absence of that 

 lawless, predatory spirit which pervades some less strictly 

 governed communities, than the entire immunity from irregu- 

 lar depredations which is secured to partridges, pheasants, 



