76 
FOREST AND 
February, 1921 
PHEASANTS AND GROUSE IN 
MICHIGAN 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
T HE following extract is from a let- 
ter I received from the Chief 
Deputy of the Michigan Game Depart- 
ment, David R. Jones. I have Mr. 
Jones’ permission to send you this as it 
gives up to date information as to 
what Michigan is doing in the way of 
raising and distributing pheasants, and 
gives the Department’s opinion as to 
the success of planting pheasants. 
“In regard to Ringnecked pheasants 
I will say that it is the opinion of the 
writer and this department that we 
have passed any possible experimental 
stage for Michigan. I travel around 
the State considerably and during the 
last few weeks I have been in at least 
a dozen different localities where farm- 
ers and sportsmen aver that they have 
mere Ringnecks than any other locality 
in the State, and I have spent consid- 
erable time going about various neigh- 
borhoods at their request to give them 
an opportunity to show me the num- 
bers of birds on their farms and in ad- 
jacent cover. With reasonable protec- 
tion the Ringnecked pheasant is in 
Michigan to stay. 
“We liberated in the different coun- 
ties, seven thousand birds from the 
Farm this season and distributed forty 
thousand eggs among sportsmen and 
farmers ; that means at least an aggre- 
gate of eighteen to twenty thousand 
birds added to the results of two pre- 
vious years’ efforts. Everybody seems 
to be interested in helping to boost the 
work, and we believe that within the 
next year or two we will have them so 
securely planted that we can turn the 
efforts of the State Farm to the propa- 
gation of Hungarian pheasants, pinnat- 
ed grouse, and other varieties of game 
best adapted to Michigan conditions.” 
I have had several reports of pheas- 
ants during the winter time here in 
Michigan being seen budding on the 
poplar and birch trees. One farmer in 
Gladwin County has now for three 
years written me relative to the wild 
birds nesting on his farm and he al- 
ways tells of the pheasants ; that they 
seem to be increasing and that for 
three years at least these birds have 
maintained themselves in the wild state 
in that locality. 
The Turtle Lake Club near Hillman, 
Alpena County, Michigan, has been 
liberating pheasants of its own raising 
for some time, and this fall I ran 
across them frequently; in one cover I 
put up forty or fifty birds. They were 
disconcerting to the dog in hunting 
ruffed grouse as they are such runners, 
but occasionally one would be cornered 
STREAM 
and he would get away as lively and 
certainly with more racket than the 
ruffed grouse. I saw one cock over six 
miles from where he was liberated. 
The comeback of ruffed grouse this 
year, has been remarkable. It was only 
three or four years ago that they were 
almost extinct. This fall they were 
very plentiful and a closed season for 
two years and a shortened and restrict- 
ed bag coupled with good breeding sea- 
sons has made the difference. If a stop 
could be put to the automobile hunters 
slaughtering these birds on the road- 
side, it would be a great thing. They 
seem fascinated with the whir of an 
automobile and the automobile hunter 
is not a sportsman; he shoots them off 
the ground or out of a tree; pays no 
attention to the law as to season or 
bag limit and is a great exterminator 
of partridges. Especially is this true 
in some parts of the Upper Pehinsula 
and the roads through our jack pine 
plains in the Lower Peninsula furnish 
excellent opportunity for this slaughter. 
We would have little trouble keeping 
a fair supply of grouse, notwithstand- 
ing all these drawbacks if the game 
covers were systematically trapped for 
vermin and so-called forest fires were 
stopped. The spring fires occur at the 
nesting time. 
The jack pine plains of the northern 
part of the Lower Peninsula of Mich- 
igan are fertile breeding places for 
grouse but they are burned nearly every 
year and could be very easily and in- 
expensively protected against fire if 
the State would only checkerboard 
them with fire breaks and go over these 
fire breaks every year with a drag or 
spring-tooth harrow or a disk — any- 
thing to kill the fern and weed growth. 
Too often is the door locked after the 
horse has been stolen. 
W. B. Mershon, Michigan. 
WATER POWER AND NATIONAL 
PARKS 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
I RRIGATION and water power plants 
have nearly the whole country as a 
field for development while our Na- 
tional Parks are limited to a small 
area and should be inviolate. 
The opportunities for irrigation and 
water power projects are practically 
inexhaustible. There has been consid- 
erable discussion lately in regard to 
using Yellowstone Lake for irrigation 
and power purposes; the value of any 
such proposition depends entirely upon 
the extent of the drainage area tribu- 
tary to the reservoir it fills. 
Yellowstone Lake is situated prac- 
tically on the Continental Divide and 
has a small drainage basin with half 
the annual precipitation of our eastern 
states. 
Even if practicable to drain the lake 
by means of tunnels it would be of no 
permanent value as the means of re- 
filling the lake each year are limited. 
A far more practicable proposition 
exists on the Big Horn River, the main 
branch of Yellowstone River, and the 
main river itself, as far as length and 
drainage basin is concerned. 
A dam at the mouth of Big Horn 
Canon would have a drainage area of 
twenty thousand square miles which 
would furnish water for two hundred 
thousand acres of land adjacent and 
power to produce electricity for two 
trans-continental railroads in the vi- 
cinity, for which there is a demand. 
The State of Montana Would derive 
a much greater benefit by developing 
the use of the Big Horn River than 
that of the Yellowstone. As a matter 
of fact private capital is not seeking 
investment in irrigation or water 
power projects, preferring to leave this 
work to the Government, which profits 
more by such expenditure than is pos- 
sible for any private concern. 
Jackson Lake, with the Teton Moun- 
tains for a background, which forms 
one of the grandest scenic views in the 
United States, has already been appro- 
priated by the government for irriga- 
tion purposes to its detriment as a 
pleasure ground for the people. 
The construction of a reservoir 
means the destruction of trees and 
grazing up to the flood level. When 
the water is drawn off the dead trees 
and slimy mud flats present a most 
disagreeable appearance. Little effort 
is made to remove the dead trees as the 
cost is considerable and no commer- 
cial advantage derived therefrom. 
Last October I was on a ranch in 
Wyoming where a farmer had built a 
reservoir from which he irrigated a 
hundred acres. He always left suffi- 
cient water for raising bass and as a 
duck pond. 
I was invited to shoot a few ducks 
with the farmer’s son. As we got to 
the dam the ducks rose gradually 
from the pond and commenced to cir- 
cle about so that we had good shooting. 
There must have been several thousand 
ducks on the pond, among them canvas 
backs, red-heads and mallards, besides 
several varieties of smaller ducks. 
