OSHKOSH, WISCONSIN 
WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD GAME REFUGE 
It is a common error that national, state and 
municipal forests are per se good game refuges. 
President John B. Burnham of the American Game 
Protective Association points out, that this is not 
necessarily true. In order to serve any good pur¬ 
pose as game refuges forests must be attractive to 
wild animal and bird life. They must contain food 
as well as shelter. 
The tendency in management of public forests is 
to plant and promote the growth only of such trees 
as will in time make merchantable timber, with no 
thought of such other free growth, shrubbery and 
other plant life as is necessary to an attractive 
home for birds and animals. 
Game cannot live without food. “The reason,” 
says Mr. Burnham, “why many game refuges are 
absolutely worthless (aside from the question of 
vermin control) is that, to put it figuratively, they 
provide only a safe house, with no kitchen and no 
order in the grocery store. You cannot expect wild 
animals and birds to flock to foodless refuges just 
because they are planted with commercially at¬ 
tractive trees. Of the conifers, hemlock, white cedar 
and balsam, when small, furnish food for deer and 
hares in the Winter season. Pine has 
practically no food value and spruce none 
whatever. In summer even deer and rab¬ 
bits will find nothing they can eat in a 
typically planted forest.” 
Mr. Burnham points out that for every 
coniferous tree planted there should be a 
number of deciduous trees—including fruit and nut¬ 
bearing trees. Game wants sunlight, too, and plenty 
of it. So openings and gaps in the forest must be 
left which will encourage undergrowth. At least 
half of the forest area should be left unoccupied by 
commercial trees if it is to be a good game refuge. 
Quoting again from Mr. Burnham: “We should 
let Mother Nature have something to say as to what 
happens on this 50 per cent of so-called wasteland. 
There is nothing more valuable for our primary ob¬ 
ject than weeds and berry briars, sumachs, wild 
apples and grapes, barberries and thorn apples, and 
where Nature leaves the ground bare give her the 
benefit of the doubt and believe that she may know 
something after all. Partridges need places to dust 
and wild grasses and plants are important in the 
game’s dietary. Some refuges should have no forest 
at all. We must not forget the wild grass swamps 
for pheasants. 
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