THE GAME BREEDER 



deed with impunity, yet without seriously 

 losing ground. 



On our great prairies and plains where 

 wheat and other grain are grown the 

 natural foods and covers of the grouse 

 are absolutely destroyed. When the 

 prairie grass is plowed under the grouse 

 have neither cover nor food and during 

 a long season before the grain grows they 

 are exposed to their natural enemies. The 

 arresting of a big lot of sportsmen be- 

 cause they shoot without a license will 

 not save the grouse. There is more dan- 

 ger of the grouse becoming extinct than 

 there is of the prairies becoming so over- 

 stocked that the birds will suffer from 

 the diseases due to overcrowding. 



The owner of a Western wheat farm 

 or ranch who will leave a strip of prairie 

 grass and wild roses and sunflowers on 

 all sides of his fields soon can have a 

 crop of grouse that will be more valuable 

 than the grain, when, of course, the laws 

 are amended so as to provide that it is 

 not criminal to produce the food profit- 

 ably. 



*■ : — 



Grouse Enemies. 



Dr. Macpherson tells us the next point 

 is to supplement a good supply of food 

 for the grouse by waging war against its 

 four-footed and winged persecutors. 



When a keeper is employed to keep 

 down the persecutors the grouse quickly 

 become abundant and it is quite neces- 



sary to shoot a big lot of them to prevent 

 their becoming too abundant. Any farm- 

 er or ranch owner who owns a few 

 broods of grouse should easily make the 

 birds very abundant and he surely will 

 have a valuable lot of birds when it be- 

 comes legal to sell grouse and eggs. W T e 

 predict it soon will be possible to make 

 such sales with as much freedoml as the 

 sales of pheasants and eggs now are 

 made. The grouse can be bred much 

 cheaper than pheasants since they will 

 find most of their food at certain sea- 

 sons on the areas planted for their pro- 

 tection and later they will procure wheat 

 and other grains in the stubble after the 

 harvest. 



The Game Breeder will supply cus- 

 tomers for all the game offered for sale 

 at $5.00 per bird and the eggs will sell for 

 about twice as much as pheasant eggs. 

 Why should it be criminal for a farmer 

 to produce grouse profitably? Why 

 should „the laws require that the grouse 

 must become extinct because their 

 natural foods and covers are destroyed 

 and the birds and eggs are devoured by 

 vermin for the very good reason that it 

 does not pay to look after them? 



The answer to the question is that 

 some common sense is needed in the 

 laws protecting grouse. Dr. Needham, 

 of Cornell, well said that the farmer 

 should have the right to produce any 

 plant or animal on his farm. 



NOTES FROM THE GAME FARMS AND PRESERVES. 



Some Fox. 



Mrs. Simpson, widow of the Game 

 Keeper of the Long Island Game Breed- 

 ers' Association, reported that an im- 

 pudent fox came to the opposite end of a 

 pheasant pen where she was feeding the 

 pheasants and barked at her. 



Long Island Vermin. 



There can be no doubt that Long Is- 

 land, N. Y., is abundantly supplied with 

 foxes and other vermin, including cats. 

 The clubs which destroy vermin and 

 keep quail and other birds plentiful not 

 only are highly beneficial to the imme- 

 diate neighborhood but also to shooting 



grounds, open to the public, which are 

 miles away. Many game birds desert 

 the preserved areas and since some escape 

 their natural enemies and breed on un- 

 protected areas the quail shooting safely 

 can be kept open for all hands quite near 

 New York while it is found necessary 

 to stop it in entire states where the 

 sportsmen have gone in for more game 

 laws than game. 



Vermin Laws. 



The owners of cattle and sheep ranch- 

 es are permitted and encouraged to de- 

 stroy wolves. They can shoot them and 



