84 



THE GAME BREEDER 



A Desirable Industry for Women. 



A talented writer on English sport, 

 Mr. A. J. Stuart- Wortley says, "I 

 strongly advocate the employment of 

 women to manage pheasantries and look 

 after sitting hens and young birds." 



There are in America about an hun- 

 dred women engaged in^ game breeding. 

 All of them, with possibly one or two 

 exceptions, are members of the Game 

 Conservation Society and readers of The 

 Game Breeder. The number of women 

 engaged in this new food producing in- 

 dustry is growing rapidly and we pre- 

 dict it will not be long before thousands 

 of American women will be making a 

 good living rearing game birds. 



The women seem to be braver than the 

 men in many cases where their industry 

 is threatened by game wardens and we 

 regard it as fortunate for the industry 

 that so many women are going into it. 

 The average game warden when he pro- 

 poses a fine of a few hundred or a. few 

 thousand dollars to a woman with the 

 alternative of going to jail often may run 

 against a brave opponent who tells him 

 to do his worst. The male who donates 

 a few thousand dollars to the warden in 

 order to escape his threatened jail sen- 

 tence does much harm to the game pro- 

 ducing industry and we hope in the 

 future there will be more brave men who 

 will decline to contribute excessive 

 amounts for small offences. 



Game breeding for women is an es- 

 pecially timely industry for women now 

 that so many men are called to the colors 

 and we hope to see many- women under- 

 take game breeding. We hope they will 

 send letters to The Game Breeder de- 

 scribing their work. 



Keeping Records. 



Game breeders will find it interesting 

 to keep records of the number of eggs 

 gathered from pens, big and small, the 

 number of eggs set, the number hatched 

 in each nest, the number of birds taken 

 to rearing fields and the number reared 

 to maturity. i 



Game breeding is a matter of skill, 

 both hand-rearing and field-rearing when 

 the birds are , bred wild in protected 



fields (as quail and grouse should be) 

 but it is well said that luck plays its part. 

 A severe storm especially with hail, when 

 young quail and grouse are hatching wilJ 

 reduce the number of the birds, and 

 storms often are disastrous in fields 

 where birds are hand-reared. Coops 

 have been overturned and rearing^ 

 grounds flooded. The records will be 

 bad sometimes but more often better luck 

 will prevail and good records will be 

 filled with figures and notes which will be 

 instructive and valuable. We shall be 

 glad to record some excellent records if ^ 

 our readers will send them in, and 

 records of some failures, also, with their 

 probable causes. We believe all readers 

 are much interested in what others are 

 doing. Each should remember that he 

 may have some experience which will 

 interest other breeders and which may 

 bring out additional facts if it is pub- 

 lished in The Game Breeder. Send us 

 some interesting records, please. 



Quail Records. 



It is interesting to go over a quail pre- 

 serve with good dogs, after the shooting 

 has ended and to make an inventory of 

 the stock birds left for another season. 

 If the season be a bad one and if the 

 shooting has been a little overdone it 

 may be necessary to purchase a few 

 quails and turn them down on fields 

 where they are needed to make the shoot- 

 ing good again. From now on we be- 

 lieve it will not be so difficult to get 

 live quail as it has been. 



Records of the shooting are very in- 

 teresting on the places where a few 

 thousand quail are shot every season. 

 We have enjoyed looking over the score 

 books where the records are kept right 

 and show the daily bags, number of guns, 

 area shot over and often some marginal 

 notes about unusual happenings, extra- 

 ordinary shots, extra fine dog work, etc. 

 We would advise all the new game clubs 

 and game breeding associations to keep 

 full records. They will furnish interest- 

 ing reading. 



Movements of Keepers. 



Wm. Melrose has gOne to Indian 

 Neck Farm. 



