THE GAME BREEDER 



87 



By keeping sortie of the game laws off 

 of Long Island, N. Y., we have found 

 it an easy matter to have shooting quite 

 near the great city which contains one- 

 twentieth of the population of the United 

 States. The shooting is kept open not 

 only for those who produce the quail, 

 pheasants, etc., but also for any one who 

 wishes to shoot, since comparatively lit- 

 tle land is used for game breeding. 



It costs something to purchase stock 

 birds and to restore the shooting. The 

 sale of some of the game always makes 

 it possible for people of small means to 

 have shooting if they wish to do so. 

 There can be no doubt that the people 

 who are said to own the game should at 

 least have some game to eat if those who 

 produce it are willing to sell it. 



OUR DESIRE TO BE HELPFUL. 



Our comment on the California Game 

 Commission was intended to be helpful. 

 The commissioners say in their excel- 

 lent annual report that they have at- 

 tempted to induce private parties to breed 

 game without success; that the people 

 seem to prefer poultry. 



It seems peculiar that the California 

 people are unwilling to get into a most 

 interesting and attractive industry which 

 easily can be made far more profitable 

 than poultry. It is as easy to gather and 

 sell eggs which bring $3 and $4 per 

 dozen as it is to sell 50-cent eggs. Since 

 thousands of people are breeding game 

 in other states it occurred to us that 

 probably the California commission was 

 not encouraging the new industry. As 

 ,we said, readers of the Game Breeder in 

 Oregon, Washington and many other 

 states are prepared to supply the people 

 of California with plenty of game birds, 

 provided the California m'arkets be 

 opened to the sale of the desirable food. 

 To make a food industry good it is de- 

 sirable to have the food eaten. 



If poultry men can sell and the game 

 breeders can not sell food in California 

 this would seem to account for the diffi- 

 culty the commissioners complain about 

 in their report. It may be the entire 

 trouble is in the game laws, but some of 



the actions of game officers no doubt also 

 may affect the situation. 



For example, when a California far- 

 mer takes some quail eggs from the wa- 

 ter of an irrigated field and hatches 80 

 quail we think it has a bad effect on the 

 industry if the Los Angeles deputy game 

 commissioner drops in and tells the far- 

 mer he can avoid an arrest provided he 

 pays $800 fine for this food-producing 

 crime; we should say if she would pay 

 $800, since in the case we have in mind 

 the game farmer was a California wom- 

 an. It is true the officer came down in 

 his price from time to time, and when 

 the Game Conservation Society offered 

 to telegraph $300 to begin the lady's de- 

 fence the matter was dropped. 



We think this and some other per- 

 formances which we can bring to the 

 attention of the game commission may 

 make it difficult for the commission to 

 induce people to produce the food as 

 abundantly as the people now do in the 

 free states where no attempts are made 

 to lift $800 or any other sum from those 

 guilty of the crime of food production. 



If the commission would like to have 

 the difficulty referred to in its annual 

 report investigated by the legislature we 

 will help. We believe such an investi- 

 gation will be proper and helpful to the 

 commission. 



BEWARE OF THE CAT. 



In well settled regions there are nu- 

 merous checks to the increase of game 

 besides shooting and the natural en- 

 emies of the game. The loss of the 

 natural foods and covers and the ex- 

 posure of game birds to climate and their 

 natural enemies often are sufficient to 

 exterminate the game. When cats and 

 dogs are added to the other checks to 

 increase we have learned that we must 

 either prohibit shooting or encourage 

 some of the people to look after the 

 game. 



The cats, both the innocent looking 

 tame animals which live in houses and 

 thousands of cats which once were tame 

 but now live wild in the woods, are 

 known to be a fatal check to the in- 

 crease of upland game birds. Experi- 



