300 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Sept. 6, 1913. 
Increase of Bobwhites in Beaufort 
By JAMES HENRY RICE, JR. 
Field Agent, National Association of Audubon Societies 
I HAVE been compelled to make a thorough 
exploration of Port Royal Island during the 
past month. By buggy, automobile and boat 
all the remote parts of the island have been ex¬ 
amined. The noticeable feature of the situation 
is the abundance of bobwhites (Colinus virgini- 
anus). The coveys are large and unusually well 
grown. A drouth of fourteen weeks during the 
breeding season partly explains the situation. 
Planters tell me that this increase has gone 
forward steadily during the past six years. 
There are more birds' on one plantation than 
could be found on a dozen six years ago. 
As this has a vital bearing on the increase 
of the bobwhite throughout the South, some in¬ 
formation on what led to such a result will be 
instructive. 
Beaufort county has more negroes in pro¬ 
portion to the white population than any county 
in the State. Formerly the land was held in 
immense plantations, cultivated before the Civil 
War by slave labor. At the close of the war 
most plantations were ruined and small negro 
tenants eventually became owners of ten and 
twenty acre tracts. These tracts were run down 
and despoiled of their resources, as is the uni¬ 
versal custom of the negro. The few large plan¬ 
tations remaining were worked by negroes and 
they had the run of the places. Diversified 
agriculture was unknown. Corn and sea island 
cotton, with bare fields in winter, afforded little 
food for birds. 
In 1904 the Whipples from Rhode Island 
introduced modern trucking with immense suc¬ 
cess. They rapidly grew wealthy growing 
lettuce and other truck crops, and their success 
induced others to come in, insomuch that Port 
Royal Island is now covered with modern truck¬ 
ers. Truck is grown by means of overhead irri¬ 
gation, the water being supplied from wells, 
pumped by a powerful engine and distributed 
through galvanized iron pipes. To enrich the 
soil for lettuce (this crop requires a highly im¬ 
proved soil) rotation of crops became necessary, 
and this rotation included cow peas, sorghum, 
millet, timothy and such other crops as furnish 
an abundant supply of food for bobwhites. The 
swarms -of negroes disappeared-; machinery took 
their place. The incoming planters were edu¬ 
cated men, caring little for fiery oratory and all 
that went into the life of the old-time South 
Carolinian. They knew enough of the value of 
birds to wish to save them, and the active cam¬ 
paign of education carried on by the Audubon 
Society strengthened their position. 
Birds from the less cultivated portions of 
the island flocked to the truck fields, and they 
have not yet increased enough to keep up with 
the food supply. An indefinite increase of food 
is assured, for the truck industry here has 
proved immensely profitable—more so than any¬ 
where else in the South, or perhaps in the 
United States. 
It is not uncommon for growers of lettuce 
(who always follow lettuce with two or more 
crops later in the year) to receive a profit of a 
thousand dollars an acre, and in some cases more. 
The peculiar advantages of soil and climate 
account for this, and there is a steady tendency 
io eliminate negro labor altogether, in favor of 
ambitious young white men, who can by in¬ 
dustry become proprietors in a few years. Sev¬ 
eral of the largest truckers in the business be¬ 
gan a few years ago as overseers or managers. 
I call attention to these things because they 
mark a new era, under which the South will be¬ 
come a better place to live in as well as to 
hunt in. 
The large hunting clubs, of which there are 
many in this section, have bought up thousands 
of acres of land, and their care has fostered 
game, but principally deer. The Southern par¬ 
tridge or bobwhite belongs to civilization and 
cultivation. His numbers never increase beyond 
a certain definable limit in a wild and unculti¬ 
vated country. This leads to the common 
hunter’s error of supposing that shooting alone 
can keep up the supply. The birds always multi¬ 
ply indefinitely when food is sufficient to main¬ 
tain the increase. Mr. W. H. Frazier, formerly 
proprietor of Fleetwood farm in Greenwood 
county, used to have five coveys roosting each 
night in his flower yard, and feeding close to the 
house. 
Under the new order the South Carolina 
coast, despite the ravages of the negro in the 
past and the careless indifference of the white 
planter, will become—is even now becoming— 
plentifully supplied with game. 
Wichita (Okla.) National Forest and 
Game Preserve. 
Passaic, N. J., Aug. 21. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: This Government reserve of 6,200 acres 
inclosed by a fence fifteen miles around lies in 
the finest portion of the great southern bison 
range, and within the borders of the Wichita 
Mountains of Southwestern Oklahoma. E. R. 
Sanborn, an official of the New York Zoological 
Society, who spent a winter there, depicts in the 
most interesting manner a perfectly natural para¬ 
dise for the wild animal life of all kinds he found 
there in undisturbed thrift and enjoyment. Ante¬ 
lope, elk, deer and the smaller mammals find 
complete homes in the forests and mountain 
gorges and rolling prairies watered by streams 
from the mountains which surround the park 
on all sides. In the rainy season the rushing tor¬ 
rents scoop out water holes without number in 
which water remains the year around, and in 
which untold thousands of ducks thrive and mul¬ 
tiply. Under a deep overhanging cliff of Cedar 
Mountain is a natural reservoir that never 
freezes. The variety and abundance of bird life 
is a very marked feature of this enclosure. 
Five years ago an agent of the Zoological 
Society selected a site in this reserve for a bison 
range and as a nucleus the society presented to 
the Government a herd of fifteen head of pure 
blooded bison. Dr. Idornaday devised for their 
comfortable transportation, which took seven 
days, crated large enough to enable the animals 
to lie down, and had them padded to prevent 
injury from rolling. The Arm’s Palace Horse 
Car Co., of Chicago, furnished two 44-foot cars 
such as used for fancy stock with collapsible 
stalls and water tanks. The Wells Fargo Ex¬ 
press and the American Express, with concur¬ 
rence of the New York Central, transported the 
cars free. The journey was a difficult and 
tedious one, but crowned with success under the 
skilled management of H. R. Mitchell. Three 
of the herd died the first year, but the twelve 
remaining have increased to thirty-eight, and now 
compose the most perfect herd of wild hoofed 
animals in the United States. One of the origi¬ 
nals was a six months old calf, now an immense 
bull, yclept “Black Dog” in honor of a chief of 
the Comanche Indians, who assembled decked in 
their gayest attire to witness the arrival of the 
bison at the range. One of the tribe had seen 
wild bison at this locality in his younger days. 
This range lacks no feature of a perfect 
habitat for bison, and with other public and 
private collections steadily increasing, and some 
1,600 head in Canada, the perpetuation of this 
lord of the forest and plain in North America 
is apparently assured. H. H. Thompson. 
The South Wind. 
BY PAUL BRANDRETH. 
The south wind blows from the land of the rose, 
Rrom the tireless trade its lips unclose. 
From isles of coral, from glittering- sands, 
From the silvery cays and moon-kissed strands;’ 
From jungle and morass and dim lagoon, 
Bathed in the still gold heat of noon, 
From the emerald seas, from the crimson rose, 
The breath of the south wind gathers and blows. 
In a tender haze, in a drift of gloom, 
O’er the ice-locked mainlands that fain would bloom 
It leaps on the track of the barkentines, 
And urges the.gray old “tramp” as she leans 
On the glass-green swell like a house of dreams; 
So, it lays the lugger up on her beams, 
As the whitecaps madden and glitter and chase, 
As the great ships strain in the gallant race, 
As they sever the waves with a sharp steel nose, 
While the south wind whistles and battles and blows. 
O the wild warm wind from the tropic seas, 
Like a mist-robed Siren with spray-dashed knees, 
Who laughs as she weeps, when the sun and tide 
Bid her for leagues on the ocean to ride. 
She is cloaked in rain, she is cowled in fog, 
Yet she tells on the sunset’s immortal log 
That for every time her wings are unfurled 
The legions of winter are backward hurled; 
As foam of the wave, as breath of the rose, 
The rapture of June in the south wind blows. 
