334 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 28, 1909. 
Imagine deer suffering for lack of food in the 
mountains during spring and summer when 
their browse—the tender buds and leaves—are 
at their best. Also, our editor calls the law 
permitting sportsmen to kill does infamous, and 
winds up by saying the result will be that all 
these genuine wild deer will be slaughtered this 
fall. If these deer are so wild, why does he 
fear they will all be killed? By still-hunting 
methods alone—the only way permitted by law 
in this State—it requires considerable skill to 
take a genuine wild deer, as many hunters will 
attest, but any tyro can get a tame, cosset, 
farm-fed deer that has forgotten its cunning 
and lost its fear of man. No, the wild deer 
will survive, but the farm- and garden-fed deer 
may suffer this year. 
Why argue further? All sportsmen are fully 
aware of these matters. I have said the Ver¬ 
mont deer in this section are semi-domesti¬ 
cated; therefore, it behooves me to prove my 
case before the jury of American sportsmen 
who read Forest and Stream. I will, then, 
call a few witnesses: Last summer deer ate 
turnip tops in Alonzo Bent’s garden in the 
town of Bennington just fifty feet from his 
house. To this day Bent is compelled to keep 
a bulldog on guard if he wishes to raise any 
vegetables in that garden. In the same vicinity 
deer nipped turnips in Frank A. Rice’s garden 
about thirty feet from the house, and when f 
was there last year appraising the damage two 
does were feeding contentedly in Rice’s meadow 
not over 200 yards from us. Three deer have 
been feeding lately from an apple tree at 
Norman L. Mattison’s place in Glastonbury. 
This tree is right under a bedroom window, 
and Mr. Mattison’s daughter has seen them 
there repeatedly—from this window. 
Last month I was appraising damage at D. 
B. Hendee’s place in the town of Sunderland. 
While we were examining the garden, a large 
buck appeared in the meadow below us and 
began feeding. We shouted at him and waved 
our arms. He looked up just once and then 
ignored us. After that he kept on feeding and 
paid no attention to us. Deer had eaten Mr. 
Hendee’s beans, which were not over twenty- 
five feet from his house. I told Mr. Barney, 
who was with me, that I thought the deer were 
becoming domesticated. “Yes, they are,” h,e 
replied, “and I don’t mind that buck down in 
that meadow, but just look at that doe up there 
going for my oats!” I looked, and, true 
enough, there was a doe feeding in the oats 
not over 150 yards from us. 
In Sunderland, Chris Godette built a woven 
wire fence around his garden—except on one 
side next to a stone wall—which is about fifty 
feet from the house. The deer got through the 
open place and ate his cabbage. Senator E. C. 
Orvis, of Manchester, chairman of the joint 
committee on fish and game, has a garden 
not over twenty feet back of his house. The 
deer cleaned out his beets, nipped the peas and 
ate some of the lettuce. Stephen Dillingham, 
of Dorset, had a bed of beets about seventy-five 
feet from the house. The deer got them. E. 
A. P.erry and Anthony Tatro, of Pownal, each 
had gardens adjoining their homes. The deer 
got their cabbage, beets and turnips. A. J. 
Gormley, of East Dorset, put up a scarecrow 
for deer in his potato patch. The deer ate the 
hay out of his scarecrow. On the Ekwanoks 
(Equinox) Golf links, in Manchester, lived 
several deer. Some men put up a tent on the 
grounds this summer and slept there during the 
hot weather. On several occasions a buck 
poked his nose into their tent fly and awoke 
the men in the mornings. I can go on with 
other witnesses, but is not this enough to con¬ 
vince sportsmen that these are not genuine wild 
deer? 
Let me make myself clear: Those deer 
which live in our mountain forests are wild 
deer, but in this section, where seventy-five per 
cent, of the deer are now on or near the farms, 
they are not truly wild, but are semi-domesti¬ 
cated. They have lost their fear of man be¬ 
cause they have become so accustomed to see¬ 
ing him without being molested. An open sea¬ 
son of only six days in the year is not of 
sufficient length to make deer wild. 
Another point is this: Some people in Ver¬ 
mont permit sentiment to carry them beyond 
reason. As C. F. Orvis, the venerable fishing 
tackle man, of Manchester, well says: “The 
deer is not a sacred animal.” They are here 
to induce sportsmen to leave the drudgery of 
business life and cares and pursue them with 
the rifle on nature’s playground. Deer are here 
to furnish us with juicy venison, just as the 
cattl: furnish us with beef, the sheep with mut¬ 
ton and the hog with pork. If deer were not 
fit to eat and tanned buckskin worth nothing, it 
would doubtless be a sin to kill them, except 
in defense of property, but the truth is they 
provide a valuable food supply, and as such 
should be conserved by the State. On this 
ground the Supreme Court of the United 
States has decided that it is within the police 
power of the States to make laws to protect 
and preserve the supply—not because the deer 
are graceful, innocent and beautiful animals to 
look upon, but simply because they furnish a 
valuable food supply. It is no more of a sin 
to kill a doe in season than a buck. It is all 
a question of whether we can best conserve 
our supply of deer by protecting the doe with¬ 
out permitting the animals to become a menace 
to the farmers and gardeners. 
Harry Chase, 
County Warden. 
Boston, Mass., Aug. 14 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have received a letter in answer to 
interrogatories submitted to a prominent busi¬ 
ness man and farmer, who resides in a section 
of Massachusetts where deer are very numerous 
—a man who has been quite recently a promi¬ 
nent member of the Legislature, and whose 
opinions carried great weight with his fellow- 
members. The first question asked was: 
“Are the wild deer a valuable asset to Massa¬ 
chusetts?” He answered, “I do not think so.” 
Speaking of the estimate of their value as given 
in the report of the Fish and Game Commis¬ 
sioners for 1907, he says, “It seems to me a 
very rosy estimate. We have learned up here 
among the hills that we cannot get something 
for nothing, and a deer will not live on sprout 
land diet when he can have fruit trees and 
garden ‘sass’.” 
My second interrogatory had reference to the 
framing of a law that would secure to the 
farmer an easy way of securing just compensa¬ 
tion for damages, and his answer is, “I think 
it is very difficult. Perhaps you can pay a man 
for loss of a garden, but we cannot estimate the 
damage to a young apple orchard.” He then 
goes on to tell of a section in his county called 
Apple Valley, in which the raising of apples 
was started many years ago by a man who has 
been several years dead, and if deer had been 
as numerous in his day as they are now, he 
says, the valley would have been known by 
some other name. He emphasizes the difficulty 
of making a fair estimate, in dollars and cents, 
of the loss of a young orchard, saying it is a 
loss that reaches far into the future. While he 
says the law we have is fair, it cannot restock 
our farms with fruit-bearing trees. The fruit 
in Apple Valley brings some thousands of dol¬ 
lars yearly, he claims. 
The third inquiry asks for a comparison of 
the dog-damage law with that for damage done 
by deer. He says the damage done by dogs 
may be repaired in a short time by the re¬ 
placing of the flock of sheep, while the owner 
cannot replace the orchard, and again, under 
the dog law, the dogs may be killed. 
The fourth interrogatory is whether a short 
open season would not be an effective abate¬ 
ment of the so-called deer nuisance, and, on the 
whole, a fairer method of giving relief to the 
farmers. On this subject our friend says he 
has not given it much thought. 
It is here that the farmers who do not wish 
the extermination of the deer should put in' 
much thought. Our friend concludes his very 
interesting letter by an acknowledgment that' 
it seems like a summing up against the deer. 
He would be glad if he could do otherwise, 
and says he takes pleasure in seeing them 
around. “It looks to me,” to use his words, 
“like a very serious situation.” He frankly 
admits that the means furnished by law to the 
farmers for protecting their property can be 
and doubtless is abused. He further adds, “It 
is a grave question how far we should go in 
making game preserves of our farms,” and says ; 
he is sure he does not know how to frame a 
law which will protect both farmers and deer. 
This man is unquestionably familiar with the 
situation in the western part of the State, anc 
I believe he means to be fair, but some one' 
may be found who can do what he says he 
cannot by framing a law that will give the deer 
a show and at the same time give reasonable 
satisfaction to the landowners. 
The present situation in our State is anal 
ogous to that described by your Vermon 
correspondent, Mr. Chase. For one, I shoulc 
like much to hear from Commissioner Thoma: 
of that State. Henry H. Kimball. 
Companion Wanted. 
In the autumn it is the intention of A. S 
Morgan to cruise down the Mississippi Rive 
in a power boat, but he does not intend to g< 
alone, if a companion can be had. Any sports 
man wishing to take advantage of the oppor 
tunity may address Mr. Morgan at Route 1 
Winfield. W. Va. 
All the game laws of the United States am 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, ar< 
given in the Game Laivs in Brief. See adv. 
