The weekly Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1911-1922, 1911-02-16
WOULD Be GREAT AID
Green Township Farmers Who Have
Organized for Marshall County
Game Preserve Are
In Favor

Marshall county hunters ana 1arm-
ers, are interested in a bill which is
now pending in the legislature which
provides for a five-year protection for
quail, pheasant, and prairie chicken
Especially the farmers and citizens of
Green township, who have recently
organized to form and locate the
Marshall county Game Preserve are
concerned in regard to the passage
of the measure, which would protect
partridges which will be liberated in
the preserve and which may leave
that realm of protection to be killed
by hunters. The proposed law makes
it unlawful to kill or to offer for sale
TO have In possession. except for
breeding purposes, any Of these birds,
or to hunt upon any game preserve
stocked with any of them. The gen
eral application of this proposed law
is, of course, to the quail. which is
found everywhere in Indiana. Efforts
are being made by a number of per-
sons In the state to breed pheasants
of various sorts, some of them i'm
ported, and these need special protec-
ton until they are well established
and numerous enough to be regarded
as game birds. But it is the quail.
the little native "Bob White" up
on whom the interest of the bill
centers.
Under the existing law the open
season for quail is short and many
restrictions are placed upon hunters,
but even so the useful bird is being
destroyed faster than the yearly in
crease justifes and farmers are COM
ing to realize that they and the COM
munity are the losers because of the
Importance of quail as insect destroy
ers. In paper read before the South
Bend Human Society this statement
was made:
SIN the matter of destroyed in
sect lift it is not an exaggera-
ton to say, as based on the re-
suits of Investigations which
have been made for the purpose,
that one-third of the quail's diet
consists of insects, which in COM
parisOn with the careful cOmpu-
tation as to weed seeds, shows
that about one and one-half tons
of insects are consumed daily,
forty-five tons of insects are con-
sumed in a month of thirty days
or for the three months of June,
July and August, 135 tons of in
sects are destroyed in the uncon-
scious effort for the reduction of
high prices, because of the in
creased production by $4,000
quail-the estimated number kill
ed by 5000 hunters in Indiana"
They eat the seeds of weeds in
great quantities also, getting their
living off Of these chiefly in the win
ter. The writer above quoted says
"The crop of the quail holds half an
ounce and is filled twice each day
Since at each meal weed seeds con-
stitute at least half of the meal
there is consumed by each quail
daily half ounce of weed seeds, and
by $4,000 quails' $500 ounces, OF
400 pounds, little over two tons OF
weed seeds consumed each day, OF
for a month of thirty days over sixty
tons of weed seeds are destroyed BY
these busy little assistants in reduc.
ing the high cost of living. and pre-
venting to that extent the growth Of
seeds to destroy the crops on the
following year."
These figures show what frieni
the farmer has in the quail and i
is simple prudence and practica
common sense that leads to wish II
encourage this friendly aid in thu
protection of his crops. The bill t
give the bird chance in the stat
is based on sound reasons and shoult
receive the attention of Legislators
1t was written by Timothy E. Howar,
former judge of the Indiana Suprem
court.