The new enterprise. (Madison, Fla.) 1901-1908, 1907-06-06
Maine Ships a Million Har8S Every Winter.
EATS ANOTHER MILLION AND STILL HAS
A SUPPLY
Frozen and sent to Market.

Maine is shipping a million dead
hares every year and eating a million
more, and yet tie supply of live mares
is said to be constantly increasing.
During the month OF December in
1906, County Game Warden George w
Ross, of Washington county, noted
more than three hundred barrels OF
: dead and frozen hares passing over
the Washington County railroad on
their way to Boston and New York
markets.
The reason why the game warden
counted the barrels as they came
along was because he suspected that
some of them contained dead part.
ridges or other birds which the Maine
game laws did not permit to be
shipped out of the state, and having
investigated the contents, he set down
the results Of his search in his note.
book, partly to assure the game com.
missioners that he had been keeping
busy, but chiefly for his own informa
ton.
When tabulated and put into shape
the researches Of Mr.. Ross indicate
that millions of wild hares are shared
and eliminated from Maine every win.
ter.
Mr.. Ross found that an ordinary
-four barrel holds 65 dead hares, If
they are slowed closely, and that
sugar barrel will chamber 50 hares
easily.
Allowing the December shipments
from Washington county by rail to
have been one-half in -four barrels
and the other halt in sugar barrels,
he finds thar about 22,Q0l dead hares
came from the county by the railroad,
to say nothing OF the much larger
number which were sent away by
steamboats, and sailing craft which
touch at ports alorg the coast and
which carry freight much cheaper
than the railroads
AS the season for Sharing hares be.
gins with the fall Of the forest leaves
in October and as the number caught
increases constantly until the snow
gets soft under the SIN cf March, and
as Washington county Is only one,
and not the largest one. among the 16
counties OF Maine, ali OF which are
alive with lean and muscular hares,
which are good TO eat when cooked in
stews or ported in rabbi. pies it is the
belief of Mr.. Ross that more than
million Maine hares so toward the
feeding of Western cities and towns
every season.
The straugest part of the hare
catching industry lies in the fact that
the average price which the hunters
receive for thei. labors is 5 cents
head for every hare thar is caught
and packed ana delivered at the rail
road station.
To those who do not know how they
catch hares in Maine this sum seems
hardly enough TO buy powder and shot
for the killing; but Maine hunters are
not so unwise as to pay out money for
shot and powder when they can get
more hares and get them more cheap.
ly by sharing.
A Maine rabbit snare is the most
primitive implement of slaughter
known to mankind.
In its revised form It consists of
springyI gray birch sapl!ng with
cross stick tied to the top with a wire,
from which cross stick there depends
a slim loop of copper wire, which is
arranged like a slip moose.
BY bending the saplng across the
runways of the hares and attaching
the cross bar slightly to two upright
birch saplings, SO that the copper
moose shall hang directly across the
path of the hares, the hunters can pro-
vide a trap that will last all winter,
and perhaps capture hundred hares,
all at cost Of not over cents.
The men and boys who snare hares
for profit as a rule select some tract
of woodland which was chopped over
for spruce or pine ten years previous.
ly, and which has sprung up thickly
to gray birches and red cherry trees
In most cases the log camps which
were used by the former lumbermen
are still standing and may be fixed up
and made serviceable at a small out
lay Having brought in fat salt pork
and Indian meal enough to last
month, the campers spend the first
week or two in learning where the
hares run when they roam abroad at
night to browse upon the terminal
twigs Of the birches. II they are for.
tunate in finding the runways, num-
Der of hares may be caught before the
snow falls. at least enough to keep