Vf* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1271 
More Game 
r notice that Mr. Pratt, the New York Conserva¬ 
tion Commissioner, has taken my name in vain. He 
says in his letter attempting to answer the article 
written by Justice Whitaker that “what Mr. Hunting- 
ton wanted to do was to purchase lands and sur¬ 
round them with fences, shoot off what game was 
there and sell it.” He says I visited Albany with 
this purpose in mind. 
I was in Albany twice before Mr. Pratt became 
Commissioner. The first time I advocated a bill 
which permitted farmers, sportsmen and others to 
produce game and to own the food so produced and 
to sell some of it, provided they needed the money 
to support such industry. Mr. Pratt can easily find 
out what I wanted if he will read the Lupton bill 
introduced in the Assembly. Mr. Lupton wrote that 
his committee favored the bill, but that the State 
Game Department was too strong for it to be enacted. 
In other words, it must still be criminal in New York 
for a farmer or other land owner profitably to pro¬ 
duce food on the farm—a food which always adds 
value to a farm when it can be produced, and which 
undoubtedly tends to keep people in the country, 
because the game breeding industry' is interesting 
as well as profitable. 
Later the State had a more intelligent game de¬ 
partment, and I yvas asked again to visit Albany and 
to favor similar legislation. It is based on the idea 
that the farmers should own their farms and that 
they and not a political game department should 
decide what they may produce. I went a second 
time to Albany, at my own expense, and at the hear¬ 
ing before the Senate Committee the chairman of the 
Committee asked me if I would express an opinion 
about the measure pending. The original bill was 
intended to prohibit the sale of rabbits and other 
game, including game produced by industry. This 
was under discussion. The Senate Committee fav¬ 
ored an amendment permitting sales, but a compro¬ 
mise was effected which provided that only pheas¬ 
ants, two species of ducks and deer could be pro¬ 
duced on the farms. The best and cheapest game 
birds for the farm cannot be profitably produced in 
New York, They can be in some other States, but 
the New York market practically is closed to such 
food, because the law requires that a New York 
politician must be sent from New Yoi'k to California 
or elsewhere to inspect or do the killing of the game 
at the farmer’s expense! The fact that it has been 
legally killed and tagged by the State officer where 
the farmer resides is not sufficient, to satify the poli¬ 
ticians who are “saving the game” in New York. 
More recently a bill was pending in Congress in¬ 
tended to create a national force to save the migra¬ 
tory game. I suggested that this should be amended 
so as to encourage food production and rural sport. 
The bill was amended before it was enacted by the 
addition of section twelve, which reads: “Nothing 
in this act shall be construed to prevent the breeding 
of game on farms and preserves and the sale of the 
game under proper regulations in order to increase 
the food supply.” This is exactly what I wanted, 
and since the bill as amended received a large vote 
from both political parties I think it is fair to say 
that it expresses what the people w r ant. All intelli¬ 
gent persons in America know that what is wanted 
is right. When right prevails the farm will be more 
valuable, because the additional crop of game always 
produces an additional revenue. Why Mr. Pratt 
should not know what is going on in the country 
ind why he should misquote me is beyond compre¬ 
hension. It seems peculiar that he should say what 
f wanted since he was not there at the time. I 
would advise him to read the Lupton bill or to con¬ 
sult its author who, I believe, is a New York farmer. 
-Section 12 in the new national law, above quoted, 
will give Mr. Pratt a correct idea of what I said. 
Mr. Pratt may be interested in knowing that 
recently, with some others .who shared the expense, 
i rented a farm from a New York widow. There was 
no game on the place. Some quail and other game 
birds were purchased, and a good lot of pheasants, 
lucks and quail were bred on the farm. Several 
hundred quail were reared in the kitchen garden at 
a cost of not over three cents each. The birds were 
worth $3 each, and could have been sold at this price 
•>ad the law I favored when in Albany been enacted. 
Um man who had charge of the pheasants gave very 
little attention to the quail. I wished to ascertain 
>o\v inexpensively these birds could be produced. 
He said that any farm woman or child easily could 
have attended to the quail in the garden. They 
'tactically raised themselves, eating the green seeds 
" Wft€ ds and the plant insects. They did not injure 
an d F ewer 
9 
the garden vegetables in any way. Asparagus, corn, 
peas, beans, potatoes, etc., were cultivated on the 
same land with the quail. The quail crop was worth 
several times as much as the land on which the birds 
were raised. I wish to ask Mr. Pratt why such 
industry should be criminal, provided the food be 
sold? 
It is illegal to shoot or to sell or to eat quail any¬ 
where in New York, excepting on Long Island, and 
it is illegal to sell the food produced there. Mr. 
Pratt’s department expends hundreds of thousands 
of dollars annually in “saving the game” and in 
arresting people who have not paid license fees to 
support it. His industry resulted in there being 
absolutely no game on the farm. My industry re¬ 
sulted In a lot of pheasants and ducks, besides the 
quail referred to. What I really want, Mr. Pratt, 
is “more game and fewer game laws” of the kind you 
are called upon to execute. 
I would like to ask Mr. Pratt if he does not think 
it would be better for the farmers and sportsmen 
who are willing to produce game to suggest the mak¬ 
ing of game laws than for his department to have 
the entire say about what a farmer can do on his 
own farm, the object being to send him some licensed 
trespassers. I notice in aonther farm paper that it 
is now proposed to grant to the farmers the right 
to sell “cock pheasants.” I am sending you a clip¬ 
ping in which this idea is advanced. When I asked 
the author of the proposed law why the farmer 
should only raise and sell “cock” pheasants he re¬ 
plied : “This is all you can get.” If this is the plan 
of either political party, all I can say is, God save 
the party if the farmers and intelligent sportsmen 
and the people who would like to have cheap food 
understand the situation. It has been well said that 
it is not desirable to increase the numbers of those 
unproductive!}' employed in order to arrest food 
producers and prevent industry on the farms. 
Prof. Needham, of Cornell Agricultural College, 
recently said that the farmer should have the right 
to raise any species of plant or animal and that he 
should possess his fai'in in peace. I took pleasure 
in endorsing and printing this statement. I would 
like to ask Mr. Pratt, now that he knows what I 
want, if he will favor the idea expressed in the 
national law and if he agrees that it should not be 
a crime profitably to produce within the boundaries 
of a farm or a preserve quail, wood ducks, hen 
pheasants, as well as cocks, and all other species of 
desirable food birds, should such food be sold under 
proper regulations in order to increase our food 
supply? DWIGHT s. HUNTINGTON, 
Editor of The Game Breeder. 
The Coal Situation and Export Trade 
The United States Senate Committee on reconstruc¬ 
tion and production is showing that the heavy exports 
of coal are chiefly responsible for high prices. James 
J. Storrow, of the Fuel Administration of Massa¬ 
chusetts, shows the extreme conditions which prevail 
in New England, and the same is more or less preva¬ 
lent. all over the Eastern States. He says that con¬ 
tracts for the delivery of coal are frequently can¬ 
celed in favor of export high prices. The profits on 
coal have been increased almost beyond belief. The 
excess profits for operators, which have pushed up 
the prices of export coal, amount to at least $350,- 
000,000. It has come to a point that while railroads 
in Egypt are operated by American fuel, factories 
in America are shutting down and American families 
are obliged to go without fuel. 
Mr. Storrow says that under the Fuel Administra¬ 
tion, West Virginia coal was $2.60, and in Pennsyl¬ 
vania $3. Prices of coal at the mines are now at 
the average of $12 per ton. He says that coal re¬ 
cently sold in Boston Harbor at $23 per ton. This 
means an increase in profit from 25 cents to $7 per 
ton. He further states that many consumers who 
made full contracts for their requirements at $4 are 
Unable to get coal shipped on these contracts, but 
are obliged to pay $11 and $12 per ton at the mines. 
Thousands of ears are held in the terminals and on 
side tracks by speculators who are holding them for 
all they can squeeze out of the consumer. The re¬ 
sult is that the American people are held up by coal 
prices, while thousands of cars are put out of com¬ 
mission when they ought to be used for hauling 
different kinds of freight The British Government 
has cut down its coal exports to one-third in order 
to serve its own people. This has created an extra 
demand from foreign countries, and the coal specu¬ 
lators have taken advantage of it. This creates a 
Game Laws 
high price for coal, and the prices are raised to our 
consumers in consequence. 
The situation in New England and in the North¬ 
west is critical, for at this season the Winter supply 
of coal should be already in storage. The export 
Prices, however, induce speculators to ship the coal 
out of the country, regardless of the calamity facing 
American industry and American families next Win¬ 
ter. The American Government seems incapable of 
handling this matter with a strong hand. We shall 
have to go past the Government, and prompt and 
radical measures have got to be taken to handle the 
situation. A partial embargo is demanded. That is, 
this country must cut down its foreign shipments 
by at least two-thirds and distribute the coal which 
would otherwise go abroad here in America, where 
it is most needed. There is no reason why the 
American people should suffer in this way while a 
few coal operators are permitted to boost the prices 
until they rob the American people of half a billion 
dollars. Not only is this robbery going on in coal, 
but this creates shortage of ears and monopolizes 
docking service in our big cities, so that the coast¬ 
wide trade in food products cannot be handled to 
advantage. There is no use fooling with this subject 
any longer. Cold and ruin are facing people in many 
parts of the North through this system of robbery 
resulting from the heavy export trade in coal. If 
the present American Government has any power or 
spine at all it is time to show' the w'orld what it is 
made of, and it should act at once to shut off the 
large proportion of this export trade. 
Help for Wool Owners 
The large sheep holdings of the West had the 
hardest Winter ever know r n to them, and it followed 
the third year of drought. They paid as high as $2 
for corn and $50 for hay, then with shearing and 
other expenses some were financially short. Banks 
had carried some of them, and when the alleged 
money shortage struck the country the Western 
banks, like all others when a money scare threatens, 
“had no funds” to lend. 
The growers depended on the sale of w'ool to meet 
obligations and to carry the care of sheep, but there 
was no sale for wool, and trouble came. Something 
had to be done. They, with the indorsement of 
Eastern growers, met the Federal Reserve Board and 
arranged that if growers shipped this wool to mar¬ 
ket they could take the weights and bills of lading 
to their local bankers, agreeing with them on a safe 
advance of money on it, and get it. The banks could 
then make a draft for that amount, attach the bill 
of lading to it. let it go out in the mail until it 
stopped at a Federal Reserve Bank, where it would 
stand as a claim against that wool until sold. East¬ 
ern growers caught can avail themselves also, but 
it will be better for all who can to raise the funds 
at home or squeeze through some way to depend on 
themselves. 
Wool is the only product that is a shortage in our 
country, the only necessity that we must import. We 
have empires of land unoccupied and hundreds of 
thousands of men who would like to carry sheep on 
them. Wool is the only commodity without a mar¬ 
ket. Isn’t that a nice state of things? Then cloth¬ 
ing is the highest ever known, as well as the poorest 
It is about time for wool growers and clothing buyers 
to hunt up the reasons. w. w. Reynolds. 
How They Make “ Hydrolized Sawdust" 
On the opposite page is a note about the new 
process of making digestible stock feed out of saw¬ 
dust. The following description of the process is 
given by the University of Wisconsin: 
Hydrolized sawdust is not ordinary sawdust, but one 
which has undergone many changes through chemical 
treatment- It requires clean sawdust from certain 
woods; some sawdust cannot be treated. The first step 
in changing the sawdust is to treat with dilute sul¬ 
phuric acid for from 15 to 20 minutes under a ste on 
pressure of 115 lbs. to the square inch. During the 
cooking about 25 per cent of the dry weight of the 
wood is changed into sugar and the fibrous part of the 
wood is greatly changed, becoming brittle and friable, 
an intermediate product between cellulose and sugar. 
The sugars are then extracted from the digested dust 
with hot water and the sulphuric acid removed by neu¬ 
tralizing with lime. After settling, or in some cases 
after filtering, the sugar solutions were evaporated to a 
thick molasses under reduced pressure and mixed with 
the digested residue which had boon partially dried. 
The mixed material was then placed in an oven and 
dried at si temperature of 70 to SO degrees C. until it 
contained not more than 12 per cent of moisture. In 
this handling some sugars were lost ‘so that in the final 
product the sugars averaged from 14 to IS per cent of 
the dry food. It has been found that the 6awdust free 
(Continued on page 12S1) 
