December 5, 1934 
 
 
form their environrment and thus determine their welfare. No rounded evaluation

of factors determiningz the population level has been made for even a single

soecies of waterfowl. :.:arvcs are being bought and reflooded without advance

knowledge of rhat the ve-etation will be, and hence without 1mowledge of

their utility. WNe do not advocste postponing remedial action until these

things are known; we do advocate shortening rather than further lengthening

the lag between action and  nowledge. 
 
          Forest Game. With the single exception of the ruffed grouse end

possibly the mule deer, no forest game ani-:21 has so far been studied from

the viewpoint of applied ecolo-cr or cropping. Yet an enormous fund of man-

power and dollars is being spent, through the CCC and otherwise, to manipulate

ecological conditions in -public forests.  Mhe larger part of this expenditure

is aimed directly at forestry and usually ignores wild life; a Smaller part

is aimed directly at wild life, and must proceed without kýnowledge.
:Tot a 
cent is available from these binds to create the nowvledge needed to make
their 
expenditure fruitful for wild life conservation. 
 
          Farm Game. With the single exceotion of parts of the submarginal

land -rogram, the vast program of agricultural curtailment has ignored wld-

life cropping as an alternative use for farms or parts of farms to be retired

from the plow. The ecological research foundation for several species of
farm 
game already exists. The rest is readily obtainable. In the stress, of initial

policy-ma-king, it is natural that permanent alternatives for agriculture
should 
be crowded out, but that is no reason for the indefinite continuance of such
a 
lop-sided policy. The funds available for retiring land frcm the plow should

be available for finding out rhat else to do with it. 
 
                                 }Teplected Land Uses 
 
           It should also be mentioned that there are several land uses,
of 
decided value to wild life, ,-hich have never had a Bureau to Tus~h them,
and 
which therefore tend to be ignored, not only in the for=ulation of research

programs, but even in the formulation of administrative policies. 
 
          Prairie. The Shelterbelt is a conspicuous exnmole of how, under

 stress of a new pain in the body politic, the public snatches for anything

 labelled medicine. The natural restorative of a normal ecoloyr on the great

 plains is not artificial trees, but natural prairie. Prairie is one of our

 imortant indigenous land crops. Barring wilderness mamm-ls, it is the 
 nearest extinct of any category of our native flora and fauna. As compared

 with forests and field cro0s, it is certainly unLk:no7n to science. If prairie

 is a means toward a balanced land use, is it not time for land use appropriations

 to finance a study of its ecology, its utilization, end its propagation?
And 
 for some corpetent agency to sponsor its claims to a olace on the land-medicine

 shelf? 
 
           Marsh *. This indiýýeuous land use has been studied
more than prairie, 
 out still infinitely less than its now over-produced comOetitors for acreage.

 The nearly unanimous public determination to restore at least part of the
marshes 
 
 
Ivey F. Lew~is--2