THE GAME BREEDER 



111 



man. In New York State, where the sale 

 of game is prohibited, the game is used 

 for the food of the person living in that 

 state, or the person that takes the game, 

 or is given to friends. Every game bird 

 that is shot and eaten, of course, releases 

 a certain supply of food, because people 

 can eat only so much meat. 



Now in America we have necessarily a 

 different system of game protection than 

 they have in the old countries. I have 

 heard this question of the nonsale of 

 game argued in a great many States in 

 the country, and very frequently it is sta- 

 ted that in Europe game is commonly 

 found in the markets and that it is cheap- 

 er there — game birds, for example- -than 

 poultry.. Now that is a fact, particularly 

 in England, and the reason for that is 

 their system of game protection. It is 

 the rich man's game in England, but in 

 order to prevent poaching on their pre- 

 serves the game that is shot is almost 

 entirely put on the markets to keep the 

 price of game down, just for that one 

 purpose. If a man goes from this coun- 

 try and shoots on Andrew Carnegie's 

 preserve in Scotland he has to furnish his 

 own ammunition. He can go out there 

 and join the big pheasant shoot, where, 

 for example, a thousand or more pheas- 

 ants are shot in one of those drives, but 

 he is not privileged to take a single one 

 of those birds away with him when he 

 leaves. He has some of those birds on 

 the table, but the big majority of the 

 birds that are shot in these hunting par- 

 ties are put on the market, and any 

 man who would vary that principle would 

 be ostracized among that class of rich 

 men who have those shooting preserves, 

 because they have a definite object in do- 

 ing that, and that object is to keep the 

 price of this game so low in the market 

 that there is no inducement for the poach- 

 er to come on their land and kill these 

 birds surreptiously. 



In this country, dating back prior to 

 the time of the Revolution, we started 

 on a different system. Our law has been 

 made, of course, considerably since that 

 time by the courts. According to the 

 American -law — court made — the game is 

 the property of the State, held in trust 



for all the people. That means that each 

 individual has a certain undivided inter- 

 est in the game of his state. We could 

 not follow the English principle here 

 without upsetting what most Americans 

 consider a system way ahead of the old 

 continental and European system, where 

 only the rich men have the privilege of 

 shoting. We do not want that system 

 in this country. The free shooting which 

 is obtained in the United States has been 

 one of our greatest national safeguards. 

 Our men who are going abroad to-day. 

 take them man for man, know how to 

 shoot better than any European army, 

 and therefore will be more valuable. 

 Kitchener and Pershing have both called 

 for men who can shoot. • Our men are 

 familiar with firearms ; they are familiar 

 with going out in the open and taking 

 care of themselves, and therefore that 

 class of men, trained under American 

 conditions of free shooting, make much 

 better soldiers than the average Euro- 

 pean. And, moreover, this practice of 

 free shooting is very valuable to the na- 

 tional health of the country. We do not 

 want to adopt the European preserve 

 system ; we do not want to adopt the sale 

 of game which goes with it. 



Now, I have had an experience of 

 about twenty-five years in game protec- 

 tion and I have been around in most of 

 the states on these questions, and I feel 

 competent to say that in the whole Uni- 

 ted States there isn't an organization of 

 sportsmen, there isn't an agricultural or- 

 ganization, that would not be behind this 

 bill of Air. Graham's. They have real- 

 ized that from the farmer's standpoint 

 game is valuable, and from the sports- 

 man's standpoint they can not have game 

 along with laws permitting the sale of 

 game. They want the system where the 

 game will be divided up among the larg- 

 est number of men. Where you have 

 market shooting and the sale of game, a 

 few men spend their time taking this 

 game, and they shoot it off so that there 

 is nothing left — or little left — for the 

 man who only has a day or two occa- 

 sionally to go out shooting. They want 

 that commercialism stopped, because the 

 time is coming in this country when there 



