50 RAISING DEER IN THE UNITED STATES. 



WILD DEER IN PRIVATE PRESERVES. 



In many parts of the United States private preserves have been 

 established by either individuals or associations and stocked with 

 deer and other big game. Such enterprises have met opposition from 

 both citizens and sportsmen, the latter being frequently ousted from 

 favorite hunting grounds by the fencing and posting of such pre- 

 serves. The feeling against large deer parks in America is in part a 

 survival of an Old World prejudice against them, but in the main 

 results from doubt of the wisdom of permitting large holdings of 

 unproductive land. In a majority of the States private preserves 

 are still subject to all the game laws of the State, so far as time and 

 manner of hunting in them are concerned, and thus the owners are 

 unable to reap the full economic advantage of their possession. While 

 these conditions prevail, large game preserves are open to the objec- 

 tion that they are sources of wealth which are not fully utilized. 



A few private preserves have been stocked with exotic game — red 

 deer, wild boars, and the like — and in many of them large expendi- 

 tures have been necessary to provide good sport. In some of the 

 States the rights of owners of such preserves to the unrestricted use 

 of the game within them is not clear, while such rights are clearly set 

 forth or denied in the laws of others. As long as game within the 

 preserve is comparatively scarce, owners will be content to use it in 

 strict conformity to the hunting laws of the State. But when the 

 game increases so as to overstock the preserve, or to become a source 

 of revenue to the promoters, greater privileges will be demanded and 

 will have to be granted, for grades of domesticity in deer and elk 

 are not sharply drawn, and there is n'o difference, so far as owner- 

 ship is concerned, between those raised in parks for venison and those 

 produced in a fenced preserve for sport. 



Full recognition of private ownership in game does not interfere 

 with the right of the State so to regulate its disposal as not to jeopard- 

 ize the preservation of wild game. Game regulations must be insisted 

 upon, and the owners of private preserves will usually be as vigilant 

 as anyone in helping to enforce them. 



The increase of white-tailed deer, when protected within suitable 

 large fenced preserves, is remarkably rapid, and there is no doubt as 

 to success in propagating them under natural conditions as wild 

 game. The experience of a large number of hunting clubs and indi- 

 viduals that have stocked preserves is favorable. In the ten years 

 between 1892 and 1902 deer in Buckland Park, the Warren County, 

 N. J., preserve belonging to Charles C. Worthington, increased from 

 19 to about 400 head, a number considered too large for the sustain- 

 ing capacity of the park. The St. Louis Park and Agricultural Com- 

 pany have about 1,000 deer and 400 elk on their large preserve in 

 Taney County, Mo. About six years ago the Otzinachson Rod and 



