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Show H VENISON FOR MEAT. H A. recent writer in the New York Sun, commenting on H 'vlhe need for new sources of food supply, favors growing H venison for meat. He remarks that the flesh of the deer H Samily is most apetizing, and epicures pay high prices for H it. Yet it has never been raised for its food value, and is B tconsidercd of use purely for sport. H Thc deer family range through rough lands good only H or what timber can be grown. Deer can get their living H there, and add to the product of this only slightly used H aoil. This writer notes that under domestication elk in- H creases rapidly and that 90 per cent of the females produce H healthy offspring. , , B In states that have been protecting deer for game pur- H poses, it is found that they multiply very fast. It takes H an open game season lasting a week or two with gunnel's H In every thicket to keep them down. Enormous quanti- B ties of the most toothsome meat are dragged home in H triumph and are a prize in this day of scarce cattle. No H ostlv harns or expensive feeds have to be provided. H The objection will be raised that wherever deer are H "protected near to a farming country, they come out of H cheir cover and do much damage to crops. Fruit trees B arc a favorite food for them, and they will strip a prom- H sing orchard of buds in a short time. The state of Massa- H chusctts has for fifteen years protected deer and a very H large amount of deer meat has been secured by its hunt- Bj ers. But to reconcile the farmers to their protection, it Hi has proved necessarv to pay large sums in damages to the H Xood producers, which must largely offset the value of H the meat. H Of course deer might be confined within their rantros H fay systems of fencing. Anvone who ever saw an athletic H fleer makes its peculiarly elastic high leap in the air will H recognize that it must be a very high fence. The subject H as worth consideration in a time when we pay high prices H for tough old beef infinitely less desirable than deer meat. BBH n |