Page 382 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

360 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
founded in 1885, by the late Austin Corbin, and has been loyally and diligently maintained by Austin Corbin, Jr., George S. Edgell and the othermembersoftheCorbinfamily. OwnershipisvestedintheBlue Mountain Forest Association. The area of the preserve is 27,000 acres, and besides embracing much fine forest on Croydon Mountain, it also contains many converted farms whose meadow lands afford good grazing.
This preserve contains a large herd of bison (86 head), elk, white- tailed deer, wild boar and much smaller game. The annual surplus of bison and other large game is regularly sold and distributed throughout theworldforthestockingofotherparksandzoologicalgardens. Each year a few surplus deer are quietly killed for the Boston market, but a far greater number are sold alive, at from $25 to $30 each in carload lots.
Iri the Adirondacks of northern New York, there are a great many privategamepreserves. Dr.T.S.Palmer,inhispamphleton"Private Game Preserves" (Department of Agriculture) places the number at 60, andtheirtotalareaat791,208acres. Someofthemhavecausedmuch irritation among some of the hunting, fishing and trapping residents of the Adirondack region. They seem to resent the idea of the exclusive ownershipoflandsthataregoodhunting-grounds. Thisviewofproperty rights has caused much trouble and some bloodshed, two persons having heen killed for presuming to assert exclusive rights in large tracts of wilderness property.
"In the upland preserve under private ownership," says Dr. Palmer, may be found one of the most important factors in the maintenance of thefuturesupplyofgameandgamebirds. Nearlyallsuchpreservesare maintained for the propagation of deer, quail, grouse, or pheasants. They vary widely in area, character, and purpose, and embrace some of thelargestgamerefugesinthecountry. SomeofthepreservesinNorth Carolina cover from 15,000 to 30,000 acres; several in South Carolina exceed60,000acresinextent." TheMeganticClub'snorthernpreserve, on the boundary between Quebec and Maine, embraces nearly 200 square
miles, or upward of 125,000 acres.
Comparatively few of the larger preserves are enclosed, and on such grounds, hunting becomes sport quite as genuine as it is in regions open to free hunting. In some instances part of the tract is fenced, while largeunenclosedareasareprotectedbybeingposted. Thecharacterof their tenure varies also. Some are owned in fee simple; others, partic- ularly the larger ones, are leased, or else comprise merely the shooting rightsontheland. Inbothsizeandtenure,theuplandpreservesofthe United States are comparable with the grouse moors and large deer forests
of Scotland.
Of the game preserves in the South, I know one that is quite ideal.
It is St. Vincent Island, near Apalachicola, Florida, in the northern edge oftheGulfofMexico. Itwaspurchasedin1909byDr.RayV.Pierce, and his guests kill perhaps one hundred ducks each year out of the thousands that flock to the ten big ponds that occupy the eastern third of the island. Into those ponds much good duck food has been intro-
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