The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-01-16
Game i'm the West and In the East.

threatened to kill the children and outrage
the women; think they would have burned
the town If the Sherifs posse had not arrived.
TRAPPERs and hunters are gathering
in a marvellous quantity of game in
the country west of the Mississippi
River Just now, and wholesale dealers
in centers like Chicago and st. Louis
are kept busy receiving and forwarding
it. At wholesale prices, the game ar
irving at each of those points is esti-
mated to be worth something like $780,
600 a week. This large SUM of money
represents vast heaps of flesh, feathers
and fur at the low prices for which
these products of the Far West are now
selling. Quails out there go by whole
sale at fifty-ive cents a dozen, while
rabbits retail in immense quantities at
the astonishing price of five cents
apiece, squirrels at seven and a half
cents, brant and wild geese at fifty
cents apiece, ducks at forty and fifty
cents a pair, and other game at similar
figures. Venison, which is retailed at
fancy prices, is sold. with the hide on,
to butchers and packers at five cents a
pound. The venison which comes
from Minnesota is considered the best,
but much also comes from Indian Ter
ritory, where the Cherokee Nation have
an enclosed game preserve of fifty
square miles in which deer and jack
rabbits abound. Out on the plains rab-
bits are hardly looked upon as game
worth the notice of professional Nim-
rods who have lived long enough to
call themselves grown men; when snow
is on the ground they are slaughtered
in droves and sold at the railroad sta
ton by the cord.
As Eastern markets are well supplied
with game, Western shippers, seeking
some other outlet for their surplus, have
been experimenting upon London.
Quails principally are sent, partly be-
cause of the unprecedented numbers of
these birds which have come to an un-
timely end this winter, and partly be-
cause the expected profits on them are
larger than any other kind of game.
When the quails reach st. Louis and Chi
cago they are frozen; they are then
packed in barrels. tightly wedged in by
hydraulic pressure, and placed on fast
freight trains to New York, where they
are transferred to the decks of fast
ocean steamers for Liverpool. The
steamship companies agree that the
barrels shall remain on deck during the
voyage, and if the weather keeps cold
the quails arrive in London as fresh as
when they started. Quails cost the
Western shipper fifty-five cents a
dozen, the freight to London is
about twenty cents dozen, and
the price in London from one dol
lar and fifty cents to two dollars a
dozen. The Western shipper therefore
hopes to realize handsome profit on
the quails exported to London.
In spite of the low price at which the
birds are selling, however, some of our
Western fellow citizens are grumbling
at their quail on toast. A sportsman on
the Missouri River declares that the
great quantity of game brought into
market since the severe cold and heavy
SHOWS set in is pretty conclusive proof
of foul play practiced, not upon the
game, but upon the consumers thereof.
Instead of falling an easy prey to the
trapper and sportsmen when the ground
is covered with hard snow, as at pres
ent, the quails are never more shy and
unapproachable than at such seasons.
since there is then no covering under
which they can hide. This winter they
are said to be wilder than they were
ever known to be before. This sports
man is therefore positive that of the
quails now on the market very small
percentage have died of gunshot
wounds. Most of them are, he affirms,
found dead in coveys on the snow,
either frozen, starved, or poisoned by
the berries and other unwonted varie-
ties of food to which they are COM
PEELED to resort. The belief in such
poisoning, he thinks, is strongly sup.
ported by the dark color of the flesh
and other indications of disease pre-.
sented by many of the birds sold. Wild
turkeys are also frequently found stand.
ing stark dead in the snow, and there
seems to be little doubt that in severe
season like this, the prowess of hunts.
men on the plains is largely supple.
mented by the weather in bringing
down the game.-N Y. Sun.