FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 221 



floating, nights. I know from personal knowledge that the deer in the locality of the 

 West Canada Creek are fast decreasing, no matter what any hunters or sportsmen 

 may say. 



Mr. Frank A. Cutting, Boston, Mass. {Proprietor of the Cutting Preserve, St. Lawrence 

 County. X. V.) — It would be desirable to have a law passed prohibiting hounding 

 altogether. I am well aquainted with several gentlemen that go to Maine every year; 

 and since the law was passed there prohibiting hounding, the number of deer has 

 steadilv increased even* year, notwithstanding the large quantities that are killed every 

 yearbv sportsmen. It is no unusual thing to see them in droves, and the specimens 

 that come from Maine are nearly all large deer. Very few young deer are killed there. 



The season for hunting in Maine is from October 1st to January 1st ; and all hunt- 

 ers are able to save ever)' pound of venison that they are able to get, and none is 

 wasted; whereas, the season commences August 15th in New York State, and if a 

 sportsman kills a deer back in the woods during the first part of his stay in camp, he 

 is able to utilize only the choice portions of his deer, for it is so warm that it will 

 not keep to take home with him. Very few are able to take anything home with 

 them, and on account of the venison spoiling so quickly a good deal is wasted. As 

 soon as the weather gets cool and the leaves have become wet with light snows or 

 rains, the season is over ; when the time for still-hunting commences the close season 

 sets in, and the hunters must return home. It seems to me that it would be wise, if 

 possible, to have the open season commence September 1st and close December 1st. 



I have during the past four or five years come in contact with men employed in 

 lumber camps; also with cooks employed in lumber camps, and I am satisfied that in 

 nearly all camps in the Adirondacks large quantities of deer are killed by the lumber- 

 men, and consumed by their employees. When lumbermen commence chopping in the 

 fall, the deer flock into their roads and enter the timber that the men have felled to get 

 at the tree tops for food. There is also more or less scattered hay and oats, which make 

 fine feed for them, and it is an easy matter for lumbermen to kill as many deer as they 

 like. In fact, in some camps a hunter is kept (who pretends, of course, to be a wood 

 chopper), and his main business is to keep the camp supplied with venison. He kills 

 his deer, takes off the hide and buries it in the snow until he has an opportunity to 

 utilize it; and buries the deer, also, in the snow. He can then go to it from time to 

 time and take back to camp a quarter of venison ; and when this is stewed the other 

 laborers in camp do not know that they are getting venison as a steady diet. Would 

 it not be advisable for the State to appoint a larger number of game wardens and 

 supply them with snow shoes, so that' they could go from one camp to another 

 wherever they thought illegal killing of deer was going on, and catch these hunters 

 breaking the law ? 



