EARLY DEER PARKS. 41 



doubtless be done. It would be well worth while to import the finer breeds of 

 English deer, which are thoroughly domesticated in their habits and the most 

 beautiful objects for a park. 



When the above was written, both Virginia deer and American 

 elk were doing well in a number of parks in the United States, and 

 had been acclimatized in parks in England and on the Continent, 

 where they were almost as tame and fully as hardy as the fallow 

 deer. That these facts should have escaped the notice of Mr. Down- 

 ing seems remarkable. 



The American Turf Eegister and Sporting Magazine for April, 

 1831, contains a letter from W. E., of Koanoke, N. C, in which he 

 gave interesting details concerning his herd of domesticated deer. 

 These he claimed were so tame that his hounds readily distinguished 

 their track from those of wild deer that occasionally visited the park. 

 He wrote in part : 



One-half of my park being a forest, the deer shelter themselves in it during 

 bad weather, and they dislike cold so much that frequently they will not leave 

 their shelter to come to the troughs, which are in an unprotected part of the 

 inclosure. To prevent fights there should be at least one trough for every two 

 deer. I feed them on Indian meal, having found by experience that raw corn 

 is apt to swell and kill them. One quart of meal per day is sufficient to keep 

 a deer always fat. They are very fond of sweet potatoes, which they will eat 

 though half rotten ; they like the leaves but not the root of turnips. 



Deer are very prolific. I have never owned but two does that had less than 

 two fawns at a birth. A friend of mine owned a doe that had three fawns 

 three years in succession and they were all females. * * * 



I have known but one doe to have fawns before she was 2 years old. * * * 

 They generally bring forth from the 1st to the 20th of June. The earliest 

 that I have known was the ISth of May and the latest the 12th of July. 

 Should a doe die leaving fawns, one of the other does attends to the fawns as 

 well as if they were her own. Just before the time for them to have young, 

 I put them up in six-sided pens made of rails. The fawns at first are quite 

 wild. I do not have them turned out of the pens before they are perfectly 

 gentle. 



The raising of deer for profit has seldom or never been undertaken 

 in a systematic way in the United States. Breeders * have stocked 

 preserves with deer as game for private use or grown the animals in 

 small inclosures for the pleasure of owning them. But the economic 

 possibilities are now beginning to be apparent. Some who have 

 abandoned the business for lack of proper range are yet convinced 

 that it might be made profitable. From a mass of correspondence, 

 the writer has selected the experiences which bear most upon eco- 

 nomic results and upon the proper management of the animals in 

 semidomestication. 



° Rural Essays, p. 174, 1854. 



