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un^er the present opening date (Octoher It'th) ‘the ducks are immune 
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wlien once^ driven «^froin the rice fields to* the tule ttnd overflowed^ 
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lands# The^ ducks musti, huve"^a place to rest //hen dr^lven from the 
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'*rlce fields', 'By usin^ the homh during September and up to the^ 
, ■• '*/. 16thrbf '^ctober , the' due k-* will leave and go to the duck clubs 
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and^. other waters-^ where they will he contented to eat the natural 
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duck' food's, going out on the grain jfields a't night. gathering the 
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■grain lost in harvest Just as they^hc-ve done In years past before 
an acre of rice was planted in California, and as they are now 
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'eating -the lost rice“1n the rice stubble fields. You may see any 
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day 'during^ the v/inter months on lake Merritt , almost -in the heart 
of the City of Oakland, many thousands of ducks ,^,'contented arid ■ 
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happy simply because they are protected. 
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Again, the rice growers will not permit shooting or trespassing 
on the gr^owing rice at any time, as ban he .seen fr.om the hundreds of 
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"No' Trespassing or Shooting” signs nested 'on the rice lands. Under 
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these conditions it jvould not be consistent to chc.nge the date of 
the open season; 
Wlth^the amount of publicity given by the-pspers recounting the 
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millioris of ducks in the'^rice fields, how does the rice- farmer 
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expect to keep the htuiters' out of, his rice fields? It would take 
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an army to enforce the trespass act and the damage done by the 
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.hunter’ would be a thousand times greater than that done hy ducks- 
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and'raudhens, as is' shovn by the following -quotation from a letter 
:and. resolution passed by the Pacific Rice Crov/ers' Association, 
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speaking ,for practically all of the growers in Forthern California; 
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.. "At a meeting of the Board of Directors of 'the Pacific 
Rice Growers* Association held recently at Sacramento, it was , 
» brousrht to the 'attention of the Board that due .to the wide publicity 
, given by^.some of' the rice growers of the State as to the harm done 
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