In this opinion the Attorney-General further calls attention to the difficulties of enforcing the State law, and suggests that it might be well to give marshals and their deputies, and the superintendents, supervisors, rangers, and other persons charged with the protection of these forest reserves, power on the public lands, in certain cases approaching “hot pursuit,” to arrest without warrant.  All who are familiar with the conditions in the more sparsely settled States will recognize the importance of some such provision.  A matter of equal importance, though as yet not generally recognized, is that of providing funds for the expenses of forest officers making arrests.  It is often the fact that no justice of the peace resides within fifty or a hundred miles of the place where the violation of the law occurs.  The ranger making the arrest is obliged to transport his prisoner for this distance, and to provide him with transportation, food and lodging during the journey and during the time that he may be obliged to wait before bringing the prisoner arrested before a proper court.  This may often amount to more than the penalty, even if the officer making the arrest secures a conviction; but, on the other hand, the individual arrested may not be able to pay his fine, and may have to go to jail.  In this case the officer making the arrest is out of pocket just so much.  Under such circumstances, it is evident that few officers can afford to take the risk of losing this time and money.

In most States of the Union there exist considerable tracts of land, mountainous, or at least barren and unfit for cultivation.  Legislation should be had in each State establishing public parks which might well enough be stocked with game, which should there be absolutely protected.  Some efforts in this direction have been made, notably Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.  In many of the New England States there are tracts absolutely barren, unoccupied and often bordered by abandoned farms, which could be purchased by the State for a very modest compensation; and it is well worth the while of the Boone and Crockett Club to endeavor by all means in its power to secure the establishment in the various States of parks which might be breeding centers for game, great and small, on the same plan as the proposed refuges hoped for within the forest reservations.  Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and practically all the States to the west of these, possess such areas of unoccupied land, which might wisely be acquired by the State and devoted to such excellent purposes.  In Montana there is a long stretch of the Missouri River, with a narrow, shifting bottom, bordered on either side by miles of bad-lands, which would serve as such a State park.  Settlers on this stretch of river are few in number, for the bottoms are not wide enough to harbor many homes, and, being constantly cut out by the changes of the river’s course, are so unstable as to be of little value as farming lands.  On the other hand, the new bottoms constantly formed are soon thickly covered by willow brush, while the extensive bad-lands on either side the stream furnish an admirable refuge for deer, antelope, mountain sheep and bear, with which the country is already stocked, and were in old times a great haunt for elk, which might easily be reintroduced there.