The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-08-26

The strongly. protective laws of some or the western states have resulted in
 a enormous increase of deer. While there are many hunters In the woods
 each fall. there is huge amount Of 'thtekly timbered territory and the hunt Iers cannot begin to account Of tithe of the animals.
 Many more of them are slain by wolves than by human beings, but they continue to increase and probably will continue to do so until there is change in the law which permits the killing of only two animals in a year and limits the time of the killing to the month of November.
 There is nothing 8 deer likes better than young standing corn, and it will exercise considerable wit and do some tall Jumping to get it. It is the farm CTS purpose to preserve the corn at all
 hazards and he will break the law in order to do it.
 It is no trick at all to kill the deer un-
 der such conditions. The only thing the farmer tries to do is to avoid being caught after the killing is done. That may give him some trouble if the war
 dens are active.
 The field shows in the morning that deer has visited it during the night. Unless the farmer has been inexcusably careless the animal got in by jumping the fence. Its impact will be plainly marked, and 1t will be certain to return on the next night, jumping the fence at the same place and keeping this up un- | til it is killed or has eaten enough of the corn. <. The farmer has choice of lying in wait in the field at night near the point of entry and shooting the deer as it comes inf the night is to be of bright moonlight (and deer do most of their feeding on such nights) he will proba- bly adopt this course-or he may fol- low the deer's tracks outside of the
 fence. find what runway 1t used coming to the field and wait for the robber there. Or he may wait near to the trampled | part of the corn, knowing that the deer,
 once inside, will approach it much less
 suspiciously than it will approach the fence. Or he may leave his gun hang | ing on its nail and set sharp stake irl- | side the fence at the point of entry, waiting for the deer to fall on 1t when l he leaps.
 Any one of these methods is apt to be | fatal if the farmer knows anything about the business, and he is apt to
 know a good deal about it if lie has taken up homestead in the woods and
 made his clearing on it. He will not
 use headlight to shine the eyes of the ! deer, because he does not know wheth- CT or not he may shine the eyes of a
 game warden. and of dark night in
 July the headlight is conspicuous mile | away. l There are hundreds of deer slain each summer in this way. and they are in
 better condition now than at any other time of year. They have been feeding
 upon the lily pads and soft wet grasses of the lakes until entirely recovered
 from their winter fast, and the young
 corn they have been eating has harden
 ed their flesh and put a singularly deli
 cious taste to it. ~- -.
 If the deer simply took such corn as
 it could eat, and went off about it's bus
 iness it is not. likely that the farmer
 would risk arrest, trial, fine and dis
 grace to square accounts with it.. He
 would be willing to lose so much and
 say nothing aboutfit.
 | But 1t is the habit of the deer feeding
 in a cornfield first to fill itselfiwith corn and fodder and then to break down and trample five times as much as it has
 eaten. The deer in this manner will de-
 stroy a quarter of an acre of corn in a
 night, and if it's visits are repeated-as l they will be unless something happens
 to it-the incursions become a weighty matter to the poor man. ,,..1 l So the shooting of deer by farmers in July goes on merrily, and, since the
 farmers have majorities in all the leg. I islatures of these states, it is probable
 that they will change the law when-
 ever the wardens grow inquisitive.-- 1 New York Sun.