42 EAISING DEEE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



EXPERIENCES OF BREEDERS. 



While hunting in the Adironclacks in 1874, Thomas Blagden, of 

 Argyle, near Washington, D. C, captured a pair of fawns and took 

 them to his home. In due time these deer bred and became the 

 ancestors of several hundred head. In 1902 Mr. Blagden transferred 

 48 of his herd to his summer home at Saranac Inn, Upper Saranac 

 Lake, in the Adirondacks. (Plate VII.) On account of insuffi- 

 cient range and food, both herds have been greatly reduced by sales, 

 and the greater part of the Argyle herd has been destroyed by 

 worthless dogs. 



Mr. Blagden is confident that under proper conditions the business 

 of raising deer may be made to pay well. In his own herd, by secur- 

 ing new bucks from time to time, he has carefully avoided continued 

 inbreeding. His stock is vigorous and of the large size character- 

 istic of the Adirondack and other northern deer. On this account 

 they command an exceptionally high price, $50 each for bucks and 

 $75 each for does. He feeds grain, using corn, and a mixture of 

 bran and meal. During the summer as much wild food as possible 

 is cut for the deer, which always care more for the rankest weeds 

 than for the choicest grass. Of hays they prefer alfalfa to other 

 kinds. 



Mr. Blagden regards the water supply of a deer park as extremely 

 important. Running water should be constantly accessible to the 

 animals. He attributes the great winter mortality among wild deer 

 in the Adirondacks entirely to the fact that all water courses are 

 frozen solid, and to obtain water deer are forced to eat sleet-covered 

 shrubbery, which, he thinks, poisons them. 



W. R. McKeen, of Terre Haute, Ind., has a large herd of deer on 

 his stock farm near that city. The Sportsmen's Review quoted an 

 account of this herd from an Indianapolis newspaper stating that it 

 is one of the largest, if not the largest, herd of near-domesticated 

 deer in the State. The herd was started nearly twenty years ago 

 with about half a dozen animals and with no idea of profit. With 

 the exception of a few dairy cows, no other stock is now kept on the 

 farm. The demand for deer is fairly active. Each fall a consider- 

 able number are sold, and shortly before the Christmas holidays of 

 1906 between 30 and 40 were disposed of. The deer are sold to per- 

 sons having parks of their own and to museums, menageries, and the 

 like. There is also a demand each winter for venison. Altogether 

 the sales keep the increase of the herd from overstocking the placed 



Writing March 28, 1908, John W. Griggs, of Goodell, Iowa, states 

 that he has been engaged in raising deer about fourteen years. Until 

 two years ago he sold his surplus stock for parks, but since then has 



a Sportsmen's Review, XXXII, 286, Sept. 14, 1907. 



