OF THE LARGE AMERICAN MAMMALS 219 
exist in countries that are covered with farms, villages and 
people. Under such conditions the wild and the tame can- 
not harmonize. It is a fact, however, that elk could exist 
and thrive in every national forest and national park in our 
country, and also on uncountable hundreds of thousands of 
rough, wild, timbered hills and mountains such as exist in 
probably twenty-five different states. There is no reason, 
except man’s short-sighted greed and foolishness, why there 
are not to-day one hundred thousand elk living in the Al- 
legheny Mountains, furnishing each year fifty thousand three- 
year-old males as free food for the people. 
The trouble is—the greedy habitants could not be induced 
to kill only the three-year-old males, in the fall, and let the 
cows, calves and breeding bulls alone! By sensible manage- 
ment the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevadas and the 
Coast Range would support enough wild elk to feed a million 
people. But “civilized”? man seems utterly incapable of main- 
taining anywhere from decade to decade a large and really 
valuable supply of wild game. Outside the Yellowstone 
Park and northwestern Wyoming, the American elk exists 
only in small bands—mere remnants and samples of the 
millions we could and should have. 
If they could be protected, and the surplus presently 
killed according to some rational, working system, then every 
national forest in the United States should be stocked with elk! 
In view of the awful cost of beef, it is high time that we should 
consider the raising of game on the public domain on such a 
basis that it would form a valuable food supply without 
diminishing the value of the forests. 
