THE GAME BREEDER 



103 



.(6) The game breeders have made the 

 mallard ducks abundant in many places. 

 Hundreds of thousands of these birds 

 and their eggs will be offered for sale 

 and many have been sold (see advertise- 

 ments in The Game Breeder). The game 

 breeders purchased many wood duck in 

 Belgium, prior to the war, and they now 

 own thousands of these birds. The Bel- 

 gians had no wood ducks until they pro- 

 cured their breeding stock in America. 

 The reason mallards are more abund- 

 ant than other wild fowl is that in some 

 States it is criminal to profitably pro- 

 duce teal and other fowl. The mallard 

 is, also, a little easier to handle. But for 

 this reason the laws should encourage 

 and not prevent the production of the 

 more difficult species. 



(7) The game breeders have saved 

 the wild turkey and have introduced it 

 in States where it had ceased to exist. 

 There are many quail "shoots" where 

 wild turkeys commonly are shot by the 

 quail shooters. The sportsmen as a rule 

 do not own the farms where the shoot- 

 ing is done. They simply pay a few 

 icents per acre annually for the right to 

 go behind the signs prohibiting trespass 

 and to literally shoot the wild life into 

 great abundance, paradoxical as the 

 statement may seem. The shooting is 

 the inducement to keep the game abund- 

 ant. The quail of course eat more po- 

 tato bugs, boll weavels, and others when 

 quail are abundant than they do when 

 quail are scarce. The quail and turkeys 

 are bred wild in the fields and woods and 

 there is a generous "sample of wild 

 life" preserved where any one can get 

 permission to hunt with a camera. The 

 writer had no trouble in getting permis- 

 sion to see the abundant game including 

 wild turkeys nesting in fields when the 

 farmers were plowing. Wild quail and 

 wild turkeys (more abundant than we 

 had ever seen them before) were "grati- 

 fying to the eye and the soul" — to say 

 nothing about eating. 



Game Farms and Game Breeders. 



Mr. MacVicar properly explained to 

 Mr. Leopold the difference between the 

 game farm and the game preserve. The 



game farmer usually owns his farm 

 where he produces large numbers of 

 game birds and game quadrupeds. He 

 sells game and game eggs in big num- 

 bers to the owners of country places, 

 to shooting clubs and to the State game 

 officers. 



Hundreds of thousands of birds and 

 eggs have been sold by the American 

 game farmers who advertise in The 

 Game Breeder to the customers named. 

 The industry is young in America but 

 growing with great rapidity. 



Free Shooting. 



Mr. MacVicar makes another good 

 statement : "Free shooting is very beau- 

 tiful in theory, but where there is free 

 shooting it usually means no shooting 

 at all." How true this is of the farms 

 posted by the farmers ! How true it is 

 where they have secured laws putting 

 the quail on the song bird list in order 

 to see that those who have disregarded 

 trespass signs have no excuse for so 

 doing. 



Natural Enemies. 



Mr. Leopold says the game farmer is 

 right in his ideas about vermin. Here 

 again he sees that the "more game and 

 fewer game laws" movement started 

 something quite worth while. The word 

 vermin was not used in our literature un-; 

 til the game breeders began to discuss 

 the damage to their game crops. State 

 reports now contain statistics about the 

 vermin killed on game farms. (See one 

 in this issue.) 



Here it appears that the game farmers 

 are by no means cranks. Their magazine 

 is fully aware that vermin should not be 

 indiscriminately destroyed. It agrees 

 with the Audubon Association, the Bio- 

 logical Survey and the naturalists that 

 some game enemies are beneficial and 

 that these only should be destroyed when 

 they acquire perverted appetites and are 

 harmful to the game. The question is 

 one to be studied and the people who 

 have game in abundance should be edu- 

 cated to control only the harmful spe- 

 cies, and that no great harm will follow 

 the toleration of some of these. 



