THE GAME BREEDER 



41. 



QUAIL BREEDING FOR SPORT AND FOR PROFIT. 



By D. W. Huntington. 



UR quail require 

 dififerent methods 

 of preserving in 

 different parts of 

 the; country. I 

 have written about 

 the necessity for 

 restoring some 

 covers and natural 

 foods in closely cultivated regions where 

 all the foods and covers are plowed under 

 on vast areas at -certain seasons. The 

 quail, I believe, can be made plentiful 

 more quickly and more easily on the 

 well tilled farms of the Central and 

 Western States than they can be in New 

 England and in other parts of the coun- 

 try where often there is too much cover 

 which harbors many game enemies. 



On the prairie farms where vast 

 fields of grain are cultivated it is easy 

 to observe the winged vermin and to 

 control it with Oneida traps and the 

 ground enemies which are comparatively 

 scarce can be more easily destroyed than 

 they can be in places where there are 

 large woodlands and dense thickets. 



All sportsmen are aware that quail 

 do not go far into large woodlands; 

 when driven from the fields they usually 

 settle not far from the fence. The birds 

 are, however, very partial to clearings in 

 the woods where there are small fields 

 arid gardens and an old abandoned 

 house with a deserted garden is almost 

 sure to attract a covey of quail. 



To preserve quail and breed them in 

 large numbers on wooded areas many 

 small clearings should be made in the 

 woods and these should be roughly 

 planted with some of the many foods 

 eaten by quail. There should be some 

 food suitable for each season of the year. 

 Wild roses, sumacs, sunflowers and tall 

 berry briars furnish excellent foods late 

 in the fall and in the winter when the 

 snow is on the ground. Small grain, 

 wheat, buckwheat, rye, oats, etc., should 

 be planted in the clearings and left 

 standing. Grass, clover, weeds and let- 

 tuce can be planted to advantage. In a 



small, sunny clearing containing some or 

 all of these foods it will be an easy mat- 

 ter to establish one or more coveys. 



Small fields made in the woods and 

 planted with potatoes or other vegetables, 

 corn or grain, to be harvested, will make 

 quail ground out of uninhabitable wood- 

 lands and the quail crop can be made 

 more profitable than the vegetables or 

 grain in States where it is legal to breed 

 quail. Roads and paths cut through the 

 woods will make the control of vermin 

 more easy and will make the woods 

 more safe and attractive. 



In my early shooting days I used to 

 shoot much in the West in places where 

 small farms were being started in wooded 

 regions and I often found several covies 

 in a single clearing and I have seen 

 three covies flushed in one field at the 

 same time. 



In many of the Southern States ideal 

 conditions for quail preserving are 

 found. Fields not too closely cultivated 

 often are surrounded with rail fences 

 with their angles full of weeds and briars 

 but in some places there is far too much 

 cover, often swampy cover, which holds 

 a vast amount of vermin which it is diffi- 

 cult to control. Snakes are one of the 

 worst enemies of quail. 



I know places where thousands of 

 quail can be shot safely every season, 

 but the reason is that keepers are em- 

 ployed to keep the vermin down, and to 

 see that the birds have plenty to eat. 

 The sportsmen shoot the birds which 

 would have been eaten by vermin and 

 always there are plenty of stock birds 

 left to breed, in quiet, another season. 



If the quail clubs owning scrub oak 

 lands on Long Island, N. Y., and in New 

 Jersey will make some clearings in the 

 woods and plant them roughly with de- 

 sirable foods they easily can enlarge 

 their shooting area and if they will pro- 

 vide plenty of briars as a protection 

 against enemies and will see that vermin 

 is persistently trapped and shot, soon 

 they will increase the numbers of the 

 quail. 



