THE FUTURE OF THE MOOSE 



221 



reforestation: protection of an existing game supply 

 is vastly easier than restocking territory from which 

 game has disappeared. Future generations may see 

 the Western plains restocked with bison, but in our 

 day instead of the bison we have only the reminis- 

 cences of old men who tell how they saw the dimin- 

 ishing herds slaughtered for their hides and tongues. 

 This problem of the North American forests is not 

 yet acute, it is true, but the first half of the twenti- 

 eth century should consider the needs of the second 

 half with respect to lumber; and the twentieth 

 century should not forget the probable needs of 

 the twenty-first century with respect to meat. 



The Chief Game Commissioner of Nova Scotia, 

 in an appendix to the report of the commissioners 

 for 1913, says: "As far as our Province is con- 

 cerned it is probable that there will always be ample 

 wild land to provide food and shelter for more 

 moose than we now have. . . . The land best 

 adapted for them is useless for almost anything 

 else." This comment on the moose cover of 

 Nova Scotia is equally applicable to enormous 

 tracts in the northern tier of States, and in the 

 British Provinces, from Nova Scotia to Alaska.^ 



^ "Without its big game Alaska would be virtually uninhabitable." — 

 Rev. Dr. Stuck in Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled (N. Y., 1914), 

 p. 277. 



