The copper era and Morenci leader., 1915-10-15
INCREASING BIG GAME ON
 THE HoRNADAY PLAN
Forest Service Says 1t Means Ten
 Millions a Year Tor the State.

Why should game be protected? Of what use is it, except to furnish pleasure to a few cranks? It is bound to go anyhow, so why delay the process? The mental processes of the men who ask these questions are generally expressed in terms of dollars only. Accordingly, they had best be answered in the same coin.
 Of what use is game? Ten mil lion dollars a year, each for Arizona and New Mexico. This is con- servative estimate of what the game animals, birds, and fish of these two states ought to bring in when prop erly handled. Several states which resources are already realizing more than this, and one of them, Maine, is hardly larger than two or three southwestern counties. Now in this connection 1t is interesting to note that there has recently been some argument as to whether there is really billion dollars worth of tax able property in New Mexico. Sup posing this billion to be earning ten percent, or one hundred million a year. Now ask yourself whether ten million a year more, brought in- to New Mexico by hunters, fisher men, health-seekers, nature-students and tourists, would make any differ ence. Would it? When you have figured it out, go tell the man who asked 'Of what use is gamer"
 Now everybody knows that the game resources of our state are at present too much decimated to figure as a statewide economic asset. How can they be increased enough to bring us ten million a year? The answer to this question given by the game experts of the U. S. Forest Service is, they claim, based not on a theory. but on facts. It has been done, and the method used by the states that have done it are clear and plain. Briefly this method con- sists in good laws well enforced, in public education, in judicious artifi- cial propagation, especially of fish, and in setting aside as game refuges all waste lands not otherwise used or needEd, and stocking these refuges with valuable species which will multiply and overflow into adjoining regions:
 Take for example single game animal, the Mexican mountain sheep, a species found nowhere else in the world In certain corner of a certain National Forest, zealously guarded by the Forest Rangers, is a little band of thirty of these splendid animals, the sole survivors of great herds which once ranged on most of the rugged mountain ranges of the Southwest. Supposing this Pitiful remnant could be provided with a permanent place of refuge, and actively and progressively pro- tected, multiplied, and then transport ed to and divided among half a dozen other places of refuge throughout its natural habitat, and there again protected and multiplied. In few years we would have enough to allow legitimate and restricted hunting of the overflow from the permanent refuges. Hunting Mexi- can Mountain Sheepl Can the lay. man realize what a drawing card this would be for Arizona or New Mexico? Does he know of the fortunes that are spent for single shot at the Marco Polo Sheep of China? The Chamois of the Alps? The Bison of Russia? the antelopes of Africa? o1 the Kadiak Bear of Alaska? Are these animals more noble, more wary, more beautiful, or more diff cult than the Mexican mountain sheep? They are not. This proposi idion speaks for itself.
 The method of increasing game herein described, and especially the plan for game refuges on waste lands is now generally spoken of as The Hornaday Plan, after Dr. W. T. Hornaday, the most active American proponent of better game protection
 The Hornaday Plan will enter into the subject matter of pr. Hornaday'. Albuquerque lecture, which will be given at the High School on thu evening of October 13 under tht joint auspices of the University, tht Albuquerque Game Protective Associ ation, and the Forest Service. Dr Hornaday will also lecture at Tue son on September 30 and October 1 and at Phoenix on October g. Every one of these cities will do we'll tt give him a large audience and al attractive ear. He has a new mes