176 EXPERIMENT IN ANIMAL PRESERVATION 
favourable soil should be void of inhabitants, even if 
the exhaustion of the land in the old States, and the 
movements of the inhabitants westward, has been as 
rapid as recent observers would have us believe. 
New Hampshire is a small state ; yet we hear no 
protests against the exclusion of population from an 
area one-third of that of the New Forest. On the 
contrary, the project seems welcomed as suggesting a 
new employment for millionaires. Preservation of 
every kind is costly, and, as a rule, makes no return 
in a case in which sentiment, and not prudence, 
suggests it. When States intervene, it is generally 
too late, and there is always a suspicion that the rights 
of the poor may in some w^ay be interfered with, 
just as in the case of preservation by ancient land- 
owners, whether of game or trees, or streams or 
mountains. But though Mr. Corbin’s enterprise 
provokes no suspicion, and seems to have gratified 
American sentiment, he is evidently aware that time 
and continuity are essential for its success. The 
association of his son with the fortunes of the park 
gives a guarantee of permanence not perhaps equal 
to the traditions that have maintained Chillingham 
and Chartley, but sufficient to insure a fair trial for 
the experiment. 
