President 
If Wiý. J. P. ABRGDR 
    Gay Building 
    Madison. Wis. 
 
 
My. 2XVIA.iltu dOhflU9 VImaau  v.c 
 
 
  lZAAK W alton                          Angus McDonald, Three l4akes, Wis.
                                  1t r-oss8ertty 
                                         Eugene Woodhouse, Lancaster, Wis.

 
              DIRECTORS FOR 2 YEARS                                     
    DIRECTORS FOR 3 YEARS 
          Aldo Leopold, Madison, Wis.                                   
Senator Geo. Blanchard, Edgerton, Wis. 
          Dr. C. F. N. Schram, Beloit, Vfis.                            
William F. Borges, Milwaukee, Wis. 
          Reverand Dr. J. A. Holmes Appleton, Wis.                      Dr.
E6 E. Gallagher, LaCrosse, Wis. 
 
 
 
 
                         Facts About Horicon Marsh 
 
            The powerful outside drainage interests are making another desperate
effort to prevent the restoration of Horicon 
Marsh as provided by the 1927 session of the Wisconsin Legislature. They
are the same vicious interests that have used the 
Horicon Marsh as a commercial football during the last 25 years and they
are also responsible for Bill 444A and Bill 737A, re- 
cently introduced, which if passed, would repeal or make absolutely useless
one of Wisconsin's greatest conservation measures. 
As usual they are using the innocent farmers adjacent to Horicon Marsh as
a smoke screen to conceal their real motives and to 
make it appear as though we are fighting the farmers. 
            At a recent hearing, held in Madison before the assembly committee
on conservation, they presented a wild scheme 
which, if put into effect, would create a hand-made wild life refuge consisting
of about 3500 acres in the center of the marsh. 
Truthfully speaking it would be nothing more than a slaughter pen as their
scheme further elaborated, reveals a proposal to set 
aside an area of about 5500 acres surrounding the wild life refuge as public
shooting grounds. Cleverness is further displayed 
in trying to conceal the fact, by describing the remaining part of Horicon
Marsh, consisting of a huge area of about 20,000 acres, 
as other marsh lands. The opposition freely admit that these other marsh
lands will mean private shooting grounds, private 
trapping grounds, and it will also mean that the public will be barred forever
from these lands by the "keep off under penalty" 
method. 
            Picture in your own mind a wild life refuge of about 3500 acres
entirely surrounded by an area of about 25,000 acres 
filled with hunters and killers of every description. This is the scheme
the drainage gang is trying to sell to the State of Wis- 
consin, and a part of this wild scheme is incorporated in bill 737A.  Even
the most skeptical cannot help but admit that it is 
nothing more than a huge joke from       every viewpoint, and furthermore
the wild life on Horicon Marsh  would have 
about as much chance under such conditions as a snowball in H-, and yet they
have gall enough to call this scheme a conserva- 
tion measure. 
            Tremendous pressure was brought to bear     by these keen, clever,
masterminds to bring about the passage of 
Bill 444-A, and now they are applying this saire kind of high powered pressure
to bring about the passage of their latest inven- 
tion, scheme No. 737A. However, underlying this scheme there is a real purpose;
and that is to place the State of Wisconsin in 
a position where it must buy every foot of Horicon Mars-hlands, required
for the hand-made wild life refuge and public shooting 
grounds, from the drainage gang, at their own price, and at the same time
pay for the huge program of dredging, ditching and 
diking as proposed in this amendment. 
            Horicon Marsh has been drained for nearly twenty years, and the
greatest paradise for wild life in the Northwest 
has been wantonly destroyed. From an agricultural standpoint it has been
a dismal failure. As it is now only the drainage 
promoters, schemers and exploiters, are able to find fertile fields for suckers
and innocent victims. The drainage gang and their 
willing tools have just recently been able to induce the Dodge County Board
to pass a resolution favoring this wild scheme. 
About a year ago this same County Board passed a resolution condemning the
legislative act of 1927, in entire disregard of the 
fact that conservation and preservation of wild life on a scale of this magnitude,
is entirely without the jurisdiction of a County 
Board to cope with. Bear in mind that the author of this hand-made wild life
refuge scheme Is now, and has been for a number 
of years, a member of the Dodge County Board, which accounts for these resolutions
being introduced and acted upon. How- 
ever, the entire scheme has the ear-marks of the drainage gang, but even
granting that, it is indeed difficult to understand why 
this board would permit these outside high-powered drainage interests to
influence, in any way, some of its members. Un- 
fortunately, some of the County Board members have also been led to believe
the unfair propoganda and false statements the 
drainage gang is capitalizing on, and that is to the effect that the legislative
act of 1927 provides for the flooding of the mars~h, 
and which they have stressed as meaning high, dangerous and destructive waters.
The truth of the matter is, that the act pro- 
vided only for restoration and putting the waters back to the levels that
existed prior to the drainage steal. 
            Horicon Marsh, before drainage, was a natural reservoir which
acted like a -huge sponge and held the rainfall and 
other waters over a great territory of about 480 square miles, and permitted
the waters to drain off gradually, without damage 
to lands and other property below the marsh along Rock River. 
            The illegal private drainage of Horicon Marsh has resulted in
hurling of flood waters down the straight ditches and 
down the channels of Rock River in excessive volume and with terrific force,
causing the waters of the Rock River to overflow 
and flood the adjacent lands, thereby destroying crops and other property.