The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-08-26
FARMERS AND GAME.
Az Objections to the Term "Prra1 Rus-
tics"

=" NV HpS-
tics."
To The st. Paul Globe:
noticed in The Daily Daily Globe of
last Friday an article by Game Warden Full
Ierton, who stated that game had increased
very last for the last few years and if Dot
hunters and market hunters could be kept
from slaughtering the game the true sports
man would have all the sport that he wanted
shooting chickens and pheasants and deer
this coming season. and l have also noticed
several other short sketches, stating that
prairie chickens were unusually plentiful
THIS fall, and If the Rural Rustics" could be
kept from shooting them with their cd mug
zle-loaders and Zulu guns the sportsmen
WOULD nave regular picnic this fall
such writers seem to carry the idea that
country folks have no right to any of the
game tnat Is now running through our fields
and woods but that 1t all belongs to those
VINO live in towns and cities, and it looks
as though such articles as l have quoted
are put out as feeers, and If there is no
remonstrance that the true sportsmen will
try to have the game law amended next WIN
Ter so that no one except those that live
In large towns cities shall have any rieht
to shoot game within the state.
we have no particular objection to having
men from the cities coming out in the coun-
try and shooting all the game that they can
and having a good time and ENJOYING them
selves, but we don't want them TO entertain
| the idea that because we live IN the coun-
try we don't know anything; that we have
no sensibilities or pride or refined or seDsi-
tive feelings, and that we can be called pot
hunters and rustics and game-law yiolators
and that it doesn't hurt US any. There is
Just where they mistaken for we ars
Just as sensitive to being called such names
as though We wore finer clothes and billed
shirts
year ago last winter there was a flock
OF 147 prairie chickens that lived right here
all winter. l counted them quite a number
OF times Sometimes there were more and
sometimes less, but generally there were just
al of them. They would go in our corn
nelds IN the morning, and get what corn
they wanted and then fly out in the wheat
or oat stubble and sit around on the snow,
SO that 1t was a very easy matter to count
them; and then, again, they would all rise
up and fly from the corn right toward the
house and alight on the trees in my yard,
also on the barn and sheds, so thick that
any one could have killed five or six at a
shot But l know of my own personal
knowledge that not one of those chickens
was killed or even shot at from November
unul March, when they began to scatter
1 suppose that II any OF us had shot a couDle
OF those corn-fed chickens there would have
Deen Dig hoWl from some of those sports-
men who think that all the game belongs
to them, and most likely q game warden
Wouiu nave been sent up here to see about
it, but l want to say right here that fear
CT the law did not prevent me from shooting
some of those chickens, but respect for the
law had its influence and besides l have no
desire to shoot such kind of game at that
time of year. whether there is a law pro-
hibiting it or not.
l cannot possibly see why it is any more
harm for farmer boy to kill two or three
dozen chickens and send them to some com
mission house and get s. or SIS for them. so
that he can go to the state fair or pay some
thing towards a wheel, than 1t is for some
sportsman TO go out in the country and hunt
three Or four days and get forty or ffty
chickens, and by the time he gets back to
the city with them they are only fit to feed
catfish with in the Mississippi river.
In conclusion l would say: Let all those
who live in large towns an cities come out
In the country on Sept and have a good
time We don't care how much game YOU
shoot. but we don't want you to think that
you have more privileges under the game law
than we have, and we don't want you to
think that by calling us pothunters and
rural woodmen and such names 1t will stop
us from shooting a few chickens in season
II We want them. and IL you carry the thing
too far there might be some who might
kill few out Of season just for spite.
&C. Wilcox.
Sunrise Mimi, Aug. rs.