Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-12-12


natural resources is closely related to-
and in measure dependent upon-that
of every other. 1 shall speak only of
that which relates to our game, and
in order to do so will go over briefly
the history of American game.
Primitive Conditions.
For many years after our country
first began to be settled by the white
man. almost an unbroken forest COW
cred that portion east of the Missis-
sippi, and west of the great river lay
a trackless prairie extending to the
foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
These vast forests. whose solitudes
only were invaded by the Indian and
a few pioneers, afforded an ideal refuge
for great abundance of wild crea-
lures and while both the pioneer with
his fiint-lock and the Indian with his
bow and arrow drew upon this game
for his daily supply of meat neither
slew wantoniy or wastefully, and un-
der such conditions Nature easily kept
up the supply. But, as population in
creased and the forests were converted
into fields and pastures, the number of
hunters rapidly increased and together
with such increase the area of the game
refuge as rapidly decreased, and even
under such conditions Nature held her
own for generations and that, too.
without the aid of restrictive laws.
Moose elk, deer wild turkeys, pig
cons, quail and grouse were in great
abundance in the Eastern states, while
millions of buffalo, elk and antelope
roamed the prairies of the West.
During these early years hunting was
engaged in purely as means of fur
nishing sustenance and it's development
as sport was very gradual up to the
middle of the last century.
Gradual Development of Hunting.
Hunting as a sport seems to have
first been INDUCED in by wealthy South
ern planters and by those members OF
the nobility who had hunted abroad be-
| fore coming to America. and 1t was
confined to this class largely during the
first two centuries of our history.
| The fast increasing wealth of our
people during the latter half of the last
century, however. was creating leisure
class and this, together with mankinds
proneness to revert to Nature had
much influence in making the sport of
hunting popular.
The love of hunting is inherent and
comes down to US through countless
generations of ancestors who had to
kill that they and theirs might live.
and only small spark is needed to
kindle this desire to kill and the love
of the chase in most normal men.
Year by year a period of recreation
has become more and more necessity
to men in almost all walks of life, and
a rapidly increasing number are taking
such recreation in our woods and nat
urally are drawing heavily upon our
game resources, and today in the coun-
try the man or boy who does not hunt
or fish is the exception to the general
rule.
Coincident with the growth of hunt
ing as a sport came the development
of the highways and the extension of
the railroads into hitherto remote and
unsettled sections. making the haunts
of game readily accessible to the rap
idly increasing number of hunters
Practical Extinction Of Species.
The completion of the first trans
continental railway less than SO years
ago sounded the death knell of Amer
ica's largest game animal. the bison,
which from countless thousands in 1866
became extinct as a game animal in
less than 20 years, or in 1888.
In 1881 / saw a herd of buffalo not
90 miles from the Northern Pacific
Railroad. at that time bdilding in Mon
tana, which numbered thousands and
dotted the prairie for miles. I saw
their swollen bodies rotting in the sun
where they had been left by hunters
q can hardly call them sportsmen)
who killed simply for the lust of kill
ing and who did not value their victims
even enough to remove their hides.
Construction trains were frequently
forced to stop to let the herds cross
the track in their drifting around and
seeking the best pasturage.
They were shot from horseback. from
the ground, and even from buckboards,
and by hunting parties numbering from
two persons to forty.
The result was inevitable; the rail-
roads had made the buffalo ranges easy
to reach and in less than two years
none were left except a few in our Ma
tional Parks.
But you may say that they would
have had to go eventually to make way
for advancing civilization. which is true,
but self-restraint and intelligent con-
servation would have. preserved them
for at least generation, and the ex-
tent of our unsettled domain even now
. Is such that this noble game might
have still been hunted in moderation
by the present generation.
The practical extinction of the elk
and the antelope has followed as
matter of course, though not so rapidly
as that of the buffaio. simply because
these animals inhabit less accessible
places and usually in much smaller
| groups.
Among the birds the prairie chicken,
the wild turkey. the plover and many
varieties of water fowl are going the
way of the larger game-victims not so
much Of advancing civilization as of
mans unthinking selnshness and COM
mercialism.
In the east orr larpest 1qne animal