Show elk 0 ro ct rig I 1 I 1 P L an 0 q 04 1 an lot V the afia U with the apati apiti P y fis va the WA 1 ii sa J 7 ERCY JONES has realized hla his childhood ambition when im a man ho he told his fits playmates of yeara ago iva im going to raise elk see if I 1 dont I 1 percy stuck to hla his word find and today lio ho la Is raising elk on the nemasket No Ne masket rouge range 10 miles outside 1 plymouth y auth mass blass on the road to Midd middleboro leboro to him bim and ills older brother maurice maurico tho the united states government has bus sold bold all but bat 80 30 of tho the herd of nearly 1000 head of wapiti deer or elk which up to recently roamed the national range at dixon mont blont on a range of 1200 acres on capo cape cod these animals are now running WE wild d when they have become plentiful enough the surplus animals will be killed for ment meat and shipped to the markets of boston and now new york because nobody elso else in the country prepared to round them up ship them in freight cars ond and take caro care of them efiem as a herd the government awarded the animals to the jones brothers all through ills early years percy zons jones talked in earnest about the raising of elk while ills his neighbors laughed nt at him and advised him to raise vegetables for the summer trade they continued to ridicule his idea in 1005 when the brothers quietly began buying land after reading a dopart department part ment of agriculture pamphlet in which experts called attention to the raising of elk its as food prod producing teeing animals recently the sc offers ivere forced to laugh on the other side of their mouths on oil one eventful day a long train of special express cars pulled into Midd middleboro leboro gathered Gathe reil nt at the station elation was the entire town the elk had come through tile the heavy wooden bars of their freight car coge cages the great soft eyes of tile tho wapiti looked out surveying the strange scene this was the country froidl which their ancestors had been driven by the ho indiana many years before the pilgrim fathers had come to settle in plymouth larger than the ordinary deer of the eastern forests the elk has haa a shaggy reddish mane about his neck ills his back Is brown with a largo slit iggy circle of white hair over his hind quarters which lie he raises up as a danger signal to ills followers when he runs the horns horng of these animals had been cut ot orf before they left montana they tire sometimes as much as four feet high the first shipment consisted of head bead and it was waa with no little effort that the shy beasts were de trained groat great wooden shields were used to prod and urge tile tho wapiti from the cars to the trucks which carried them to their new home at the range the trucks were backed upi api to a dirt ramp as you will notice in the above picture and tho the tall gates were drawn but instead of leaping kenping out the frightened animals went right on pushing each other and stamping around inside tho the truck sometimes it took as much oa as flye five minutes before one of them would raise her beautiful head look out across the ramp and then suddenly with one desperate lunge bolt for liberty soon tho tha others followed tile reason wo we chose massachusetts for our elk raising to Is that conditions are perfect choto theix spid maurice A jones in explaining their venture too it Is IR one due of the few states without laws aws against selling tho ment meat the elk Is dotso not so tamo tame as the ordinary deer the deer will live where there are people and come and steal a bit offord of food oft off the buck back porch when the winter vinter Is noigh but the elk wont 1 z vt 7 4 n I 1 r W 4 16 0 7 P e 1 a I 1 stay where there are people so ho he was waa driven west ivest massachusetts mado made her game laws after lie ho had bad disappeared hence sho she say anything about selling elk venison the western states made their game laws while thero there were still wild elk left so eo it Is against the law to sell the meat there elk meat Is a delicious and profitable sort of food we calculate that iwo can ann raise elk at from 0 to 8 cents a 11 pound production cost about what it costs coata to raise beef elk however are much easier to raise than cattle tho the elk thrives on loss less food than any other member of the deer family or tiny any other animal near its size and it Is 18 almost immune to disease it puts on weight faster than the reindeer which la 14 grown in europe and which our government Is growing for meat in ill alaska Al askil elk will browse on the young tips of trees and bushes which nets on the bushes its as pruning does on apple trees they do well in n pasture land and also in land covered with scrub growth its as la 14 tho the cape white ork oak tips of which they will find plenty here give a peculiarly culi cull arly delicious flavor to tile the meat tho the meat Is not so eo gamy as deer moat meat and it to Is pecullar peculiar in that tile the tat fat Is its as good as that of the buffalos buffaloe buff alos hump loump which Is regarded as a delicacy in the west elk ment meat lias has one third more nerve and energy building qualities than beef mutton or pork and one third less leaa fattening qualities after tile the fence Is put up mr air jones explained there Is nothing else to do except see that the elk are kept inside of it they feed and take care of themselves thein selves they will dig down to get tit at grass under the snow or stand on oil their hind legs and browse eight feet from the ground tile the cows breed tit two years yeara of age bringing forth their first calf on their third birthday and one a yea from that time on tile the elk breeding and grazing association cia tion which Is the nime of the jon jonfa s brothers COM company PhIlY hopes to increase the herd to 2200 bend the number that could be raised on their 1200 acres A year ago they brought nine elk from rushville ill which tire now much tit nt honio home on the se maRket range and proved the feasibility of importing more inore this year the government decided that the national bison range of acres would soon grow too crowded it if the to 1200 elk thero were kept along with the buffalo the opportunity that the jones boys had find been looking for tact had arrived nt at last it was not long benoze percy and maurice jones and iko ike milton on their cow ponies had rounded up their fl first I 1 the cost of the work woric aud and the carfare from montana to Midd middleboro leboro mr air jones said eald had made tho the elk worth about 85 81 a head jumping over to pennsylvania we w find the deer here making a nuisance nul sanca of themselves this states game protective measures have been too successful and have resulted in the accumulation of a n largo large number of halt half tame tama does frequenting settled areas them animals have made inroads Inroad 3 on farm ers era crops and orchards and us as a a law has been passed giving landowners the right under certain rules of the game commission to kill bill such animals when injuring tar their property and to use the carcasses in this connection tho following statement by the pennsylvania state staid game commis commission oon seth 11 gordon executive secretary Is enlightening last winter a committee representing sportsmen and farmers sponsored legislation to relieve farmers ani and fruit growers from inroads on their crops und orchards by deer in various sections of the state the department of agriculture then reported that material damage had been done by deer in about twenty counties of tho the state and urged relief from these depredations the legislature provided several methods of relief the old law permitting landowners to kill bill deer to send tu to charitable institutions when material damage was continued and in addition the state game commission wan wag required to designate tho the sections of the state where deer aro committing serious depredations in which lemig bated areas the law allows landowners under tinder certain stipulated conditions to retain and use in their own households till all edible portions of the carcasses of deer killed instead of sending them to charitable institutions tile the game commission after deciding upon a i constructive plan of action on july 13 took tho the first step toward relief and designated seventeen counties und and parts of three counties ai having within their borders segregated or scattered areas in which deer aro doing sufficient damage to warrant allowing landowners whose lands are ara open to public hunting antl anil whose crops are actually being injured to retain the carcasses of deer killed kill Q d am aa provided by law the district game protector to bo be the alie judge in tho the matter of damage this action of the board does not authorize killing deer anywhere else in said counties neither does it authorize the killing of any other kind of game to bo be retained for food during a period of about a month prior to july 13 nine deer four bucks and five does were killed and the carcasses either sent to charitable eions or burled because they were ui UD qt it for food |