ner:

DAMAGES PAID FOR DEER DEPREDATIONS IN VERMONT DURING
TWO YEARS

Total damages paid from June 8, 1908, to June 22, 1910 $4,865.98
Total number of claims paid 311
Total number of claims under $5 80
Number between $5 and $10, inclusive 102
Number over $25 and under $51 23
Number between $50 and $100 11
Number in excess of $100 4
Number in excess of $200 1
Largest claim paid $326.50

VALUE OF WHITE-TAILED DEER.--Having noted the fact that in two years
(1908-9), the people of Vermont paid out $4,865 in compensation for
damages inflicted by deer, it is of interest to determine whether that
money was wisely expended. In other words, did it pay?

We have seen that in the years 1908 and 9, the people of Vermont killed,
legally and illegally, and converted to use, 7,186 deer. This does not
include the deer killed by dogs and by accidents.

Regarding the value of a full-grown deer, it must be remembered that
much depends upon the locality of the carcass. In New York or Pittsburg
or Chicago, a whole deer is worth, at wholesale, at least twenty-five
dollars. In Vermont, where deer are plentiful, they are worth a less
sum. I think that fifteen dollars would be a fair figure,--at least low
enough!

Even when computed at fifteen dollars per carcass, those deer were worth
to the people of Vermont $107,790. It would seem, therefore, that the
soundness of Vermont's policy leaves no room for argument; and we hope
that other states, and also private individuals, will profit by
Vermont's very successful experiment in bringing back the deer to her
forests, and in increasing the food supply of her people.

KILLING FEMALE DEER.--To say one word on this subject which might by any
possibility be construed as favoring it, is like juggling with a lighted
torch over a barrel of gunpowder. Already, in Pennsylvania at least one
gentleman has appeared anxious to represent me as favoring the killing
of does, which in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every
thousand I distinctly and emphatically do not. The slaughter of female
hoofed game animals is necessarily destructive and reprehensible, and
not one man out of every ten thou