THE GAME BREEDER 



179 



old bird and brood being liberated. This 

 is known as the French system, and we 

 have printed several articles about it. 



We regard the partridge as fully as . 

 good for the table as the pheasant; if 

 anything somewhat better, and we be- 

 lieve this is the opinion of sportsmen 

 in the older countries. 



Our bobwhite quail or partridge we 

 regard as better for sport and fully as 

 good as, if not better than, the foreign 

 birds on the table. The quails can be 

 made to swarm on protected areas which 

 are safe and attractive, provided the beat 

 keepers are diligent and faithful. * Their 

 work is much more difficult in America 

 than it is in the older countries because 

 the vermin is more abundant here than 

 there, and as a rule the keepers have no 

 assistance from keepers on adjoining 

 places. We have observed in places 

 where briar patches are abundant at the 

 sides of fields that many birds escape the 

 vermin, but to get the best results sev- 

 eral keepers should be on a large place 

 at all times; — 1,200 to 1,500 acres is al- 

 lotted to a keeper in the older countries 

 usually. In America a keeper should 

 have charge of a smaller area because 

 the work is more difficult than it is in 

 countries where the neighbors look after 

 the. stray cats and the wilder vermin. 



There are places in America where 

 thousands of quail are safely shot every 

 season, but some of these places could be 

 made to yield even more abundantly pro- 

 vided more keepers be employed. Of 

 course since no birds can be sold alive 

 or dead and more are shot in some cases 

 than the shooters know what to do with, 

 there is no necessity or de-sire to go in 

 for bigger results. 



The hand rearing of quail, like the 

 hand rearing of partridges, is far more 

 difficult than pheasant rearing is, and 

 since there is an easier and a better way 

 we long have believed that the hand rear- 

 ing of quail should not be relied on to 

 produce any big results, but that the 

 cheaper and simpler methods should be 

 adopted. Some hand rearing for experi- 

 mental purposes and to supplement the 

 wild breeding operations is interesting 

 and somewhat helpful in some places, 



but an abundance of quail quickly can 

 be produced in a wild state and this we 

 regard as the right method for making 

 and keeping the quail plentiful. 



More Pheasants. 



The American Field quotes a Niagara 

 County, N. Y., farmer as saying: "I in- 

 tend to shoot every pheasant I find de- 

 stroying my crops in the future." 



In England, where the small farmers, 

 as well as the big ones, own the game on 

 their places, the damage to crops is 

 easily prevented by the use of scare boys 

 at certain short seasons when damage 

 may occur. It pays, of course, to look 

 after the game. The American farmer 

 hardly can be expected to encourage 

 game to destroy his crops in the hope 

 that later in the season a horde of 

 licensed trespassers will come to his re- 

 lief and shoot up his place, "killing poul- 

 try and wounding horses and cattle in 

 the fields," as we once heard a rural 

 Senator say when describing field sports 

 of today. The wonder is that the game 

 birds have not been made singers on 

 larger areas than they have. Shooting 

 has been prohibited on a much larger 

 area in the United States than the entire 

 area of all of the British Isles, and the 

 idea of stopping field sports will spread 

 quickly in the agricultural states if the 

 farmers' interests be not considered in 

 our future game law making. 



Experiment with Prairie Grouse. 



G. F. Johnson. 



I have tried hatching several settings 

 of prairie chicken eggs this summer un- 

 der bantam hens. The eggs hatch. But 

 the problem is to keep them with the 

 hen. They all died or ran away and 

 got lost. I had one bantam setting on 

 twelve eggs and when they were about 

 ready to hatch I put them under a three- 

 fourths wild turkey hen that had set 

 along a fence on the edge of a wheat 

 field. The turkey hen .hatched every egg. 

 About twenty-four hours after they were 

 hatched the hen was getting along fine 

 with them. After that she went out in 



