ietiatne ee UeUsUebrOrNe mB. Uclits Bele leNn fi 
cover page and a total of seven pages of material as informative as that we 
show—which is a far cry from the books that are familiar to us today. 
The original, which measures 2% by 2% inches, was loaned to us by 
Miss Marie Hostetter, a librarian, who has made a collection of similar 
early editions of literature for children. 
a (ah rail 
WHEN 10 WILD CANADA GEESE dropped down on one of the Fox River farm 
fields last week, farm residents were reminded that it soon will be time for 
their annual series of debates with hunters. Each fall, farmers within a 
100 mile radius of Chicago find scores of city hunters at their doors, asking 
permission to shoot rabbits, pheasants, quail, ducks, geese and other game. 
Each farmer has to decide whether to permit hunting, allow a limited 
number of hunters on his property, or ban all hunters. 
The hunting season for waterfowl, including ducks and geese, opened 
last Saturday in Illinois, so the immediate problem before the Fox River 
farmers is how to protect the visiting honkers. The men themselves would 
not shoot the birds, therefore they will not permit others to hunt the geese 
on their land. Similarly, they have a good population of pheasants and at 
least three sizable coveys of Bob White quail. 
The aesthetic and economic value of these wild birds is so great, from 
the farmer’s standpoint, that they wouldn’t think of killing the game. When 
they work in the fields or drive down the farm roads, they enjoy seeing a 
covey of quail flush from a fencerow, or a gaudy cock pheasant whir over a 
cornfield. Secondly, a heavy population of game in farm fields represents 
profits on the farm ledger because the birds are valuable for their consump- 
tion of destructive insects and weed seeds. 
The hunter’s major point in debating farmers on the hunting problem is 
that the game belongs to the public, not to the landowner. Furthermore, 
- the hunter buys a state hunting license, hence it is his money which supports 
the game hatcheries which restock farm fields. 
The farmer’s retaliation is that there would be no game except for his 
maintenance of vegetative cover for the birds. Furthermore, the farmer’s 
right of controling the use of his land is guaranteed by trespass laws. 
The final point stressed by farmers is that indiscriminate permission to 
hunt, especially on lands near a metropolitan center, results in overcrowding 
and endangers the lives of hunters and live stock. Last week a farm boy in 
Kendall County was injured when a rifle bullet fired by a squirrel hunter 
entered his knee. 
One way of solving the problem of finding hunting places for city hunters 
is that of providing state owned land for public hunting. The Illinois de- 
partment of conservation now owns three sites in the Illinois River valley 
where sportsmen may hunt ducks without charge, and a public pheasant 
hunting preserve will be opened near Fox Lake, in Lake County, Nov. 11, 
opening date of the upland game season.—“‘Day by Day on the Farm,” 
Chicago Daily Tribune, Oct. 14, 1945. 
