Conservation Commission. 33 



of the State's finances, the Governor felt constrained to disap- 

 prove. We strongly recommend that provision be made at the 

 present session of the Legislature for additional game farms. 



Revenues of Department. 



Reference to the financial statement of this department, which 

 is appended to this report, will show that the revenues turned 

 over to the State treasury by the Conservation Commission amount 

 at the present time to about a quarter of a million dollars annually. 

 For the fiscal year ending September 30th last the total receipts 

 were $256,002.84. Of this sum over $152,000 was derived from 

 hunters' licenses. The tagging of foreign game, which is a new 

 source of revenue, yielded over $20,000*; the netting license 

 fees amounted to about $9,000. These revenues come from 

 sportsmen and others who are quite content to contribute 

 something to the support of the State government, but feel that 

 they have a right to expect better protection and propagation of 

 fish and game as a result of their contribution. The Legislature 

 may well bear this point in mind, as well as the fact that moneys 

 devoted to the propagation and protection of our wild life are 

 well invested. 



Deer in Adirondack Region. 



Reports from the regular game protectors show that the supply 

 of deer in the Adirondacks is greater than at any time during the 

 past quarter of a century. This increase is attributed in part to 

 better enforcement of the law, and in part to the successful experi- 

 ment of cutting and stacking the marsh hay on which the deer 

 could subsist during the more severe weather. 



The Buck Law. 



Perhaps no feature of the Conservation Law in relation to 

 fish and game has attracted more discussion than the so-called 

 " buck law," which restricts the taking of deer to bucks with 

 horns not less than three inches long. While this provision is 

 new to the statutes of the State of New York it has been success- 

 fully tried in other states ; and while it has not been in operation 

 in this State a sufficient time for a conclusive test to be made, 

 2 



