Two million deer at $10 each mean $20,000,000.  The licenses for the killing of two million deer should cost one million men one dollar each; and that would pay 1,666 new game wardens each fifty dollars per month, all the year round.  The damages that would need to be paid to farmers, on account of crops injured by deer, would be so small that each county could take care of its own cases, from its own treasury, as is done in the State of Vermont.

There are certain essentials to the realization of a dream of two million deer per year that are absolutely required.  They are neither obscure nor impossible.

Each state and each county proposing to stock its vacant woods with deer must resolutely educate its own people in the necessity of playing fair about the killing of deer, and giving every man and every deer a square deal.  This is not impossible!  Not as a general thing, even though it may be so in some specially lawless communities.  If the leading men of the state and the county will take this matter seriously in hand, it can be done in two years’ time.  The American people are not insensible to appeals to reason, when those appeals are made by their own “home folks.”  The governors, senators, assemblymen, judges, mayors and justices of the peace could, if they would, make a campaign of education and appeal that would result in the creation of an immense volume of free wild food in every state that possesses wild lands.

When the shoe of Necessity pinches the People hard enough, remember the possibilities in deer.

[Illustration:  WHITE-TAILED DEER If Honestly and Intelligently Conserved, this Species could be made to Produce on our Wild Lands Two Million Deer per annum, as a new Food Supply From the “American Natural History”]

The best wild animal to furnish a serious food supply is the white-tailed deer.  This is because of its persistence and fertility.  The elk is too large for general use.  An elk carcass can not be carried on a horse; it is impossible to get a sled or a wagon to where it lies; and so, fully half of it usually is wasted!  The mule deer is good for the Rocky Mountains, and can live where the white-tail can not; but it is too easy to shoot!  The Columbian black-tail is the natural species for the forests of the Pacific states; but it is a trifle small in size.

THE EXAMPLE OF VERMONT.—­In order to show that all the above is not based on empty theory,—­regarding the stocking of forests with deer, their wonderful powers of increase, and the practical handling of the damage question,—­let us take the experience and the fine example of Vermont.

In April, 1875, a few sportsmen of Rutland, of whom the late Henry W. Cheney was one, procured in the Adirondacks thirteen white-tailed deer, six bucks and seven does.  These were liberated in a forest six miles from Rutland, and beyond being protected from slaughter, they were left to shift for themselves.  They increased, slowly at first, then rapidly, and by 1897, they had become so numerous that it seemed right to have a short annual open season, and kill a few.  From first to last, many of those deer have been killed contrary to law.  In 1904-5, it was known that 294 head were destroyed in that way; and undoubtedly there were others that were not reported.