Forest and Stream, October 7, 1886
THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION.
Natural resources -- Conservation - Game
Richmond, Va., Sept. 29. -- Editor Forest and Stream:
I do not know that there is much to tell you about our sportsman's meeting. It convenes pursuant to the call of which I inclose you a copy; and from responses received we will have 150 to 200 members present. We will have headquarters on our State Fair Grounds, and some pleasant shooting. We hope to have a good organization and do much toward improving our game protective laws. We also contemplate field trial features in connection with it.
JOHN S. WISE.
The call reads as follows:
DEAR SIR -- Yielding to the request made from various sources that I should take the initiative in the endeavor to form "The Virginia Field Sports Association," I invite you to meet a number of our friends at my office, No. 27 Shafer's Building, Richmond, Va., at 10 o'clock A. M., on Thursday, the 21st day of October, 1886, that being the first day of the State Fair.
I trust you will be present, if possible, and if you cannot be present, in person, you will send me the inclosed authority to have you enrolled as a member. If, from the answers received to this, we are assured of the presence of a considerable number of brother sportsmen from a distance, and that our effort will meet with a proper response, I will go to work at once and make arrangements for a shooting match at the fair, and other amusements to make your visit attractive. I beg you to come, if possible, and unite with us in the formation of the association.
Almost every other State in the country has such an association; but ours, while needing the aid of associated effort to protect our game more than any State in the Union, is altogether without any such society.
I have hesitated long about assuming the responsibility of this call, because the task is laborious and thankless, at best; but some one must put the matter in motion, and I feel it to be a duty we owe that some step should be taken to protect and replenish our game supply before it is too late. It so happened that, from time to time, friends in different parts of the country have sent me copies of the constitution and by-laws of the various organizations of this kind, and I have preserved them. I believe I now have the printed plans of organization of nearly every such association in the country, and, when we meet, will take pleasure in laying them before the body for the selection of their best features in framing our own code.
I trust you will not dismiss this invitation lightly, on the score of some more important occupation or employment. It is true that we all have other employments to which, if this be brought in conflict with them, it must yield; but this is not a mere invitation to pastime. The proper steps to be taken to preserve our game and replenish it, is a question worthy of the earnest thought, the time and effort of every good citizen, however grave his nature or employment.
The general scope of our organization will be as follows: I. To protect, preserve and replenish the game of Virginia. II. To encourage and promote field sports in such a manner as, while having a due regard to the first object, they will be pursued so as to yield the greatest pleasure and furnish healthful, humane and scientific enjoyment. III. To gain the friendly co-operation of gentlemen in different sections of the State for these objects, whereby results can be reached, far beyond anything attainable through individual effort, however praiseworthy or earnest.
Under the first head much may be said:
1. Undoubtedly we can, conferring together, do much to devise, present and secure the passage of laws far superior to the haphazard legislation now on the statute books.
2. In the manner of replenishing game where, by the severity of the seasons, or other causes, it has been destroyed. For instance, last winter, in Georgia, I saw hundreds -- nay, thousands -- of quail, alive in coops, and for sale as low as $8 per 100. In the particular localities where I shoot, we needed no replenishing, and I did not have time to hunt up localities where they were needed. Yet there are sections of the State where they are almost absolutely destroyed. With such an organization as I propose, we will have reports from all sections, and as they become barren, they may be restocked at an expense so trifling as to be no burden upon an association of this sort, yet with a result gratifying beyond expression.
We may also try interesting experiments in introducing new species of game, and in putting back upon the large wastes in Tidewater the game which was originally there and driven from those sections where they were more closely cultivated.
Under the second head much may be done to make the association a source of interest and pleasure to the members. We can provide for the improvement in breeding and training our sporting animals, and incidentally find great sport in competitive trials. One who has been content with happy-go-lucky shooting, and thought more of the size of his bag than the way he filled it, little realizes how much more intense and how much more praiseworthy is the enjoyment of the sportsman whose interest is centered in the performance of his dog, and who subordinates the thirst for slaughter to an ambition to make his sporting companion a scientific workman. Our Virginia sportsmen, as a rule, have little idea of what advances have been made of late years among sportsmen in the science of hunting, or how much more pleasure is attainable in that way than in the rough-roll-and-tumble style of other days. It is to give them an insight into the "higher walks of art" in this matter of hunting -- to introduce the scientific element in both the breeding and training of dogs, and thereby to increase the pleasure of using, as well as the intrinsic value of their stock -- that this association is proposed. I need not repeat how much more effective is associated effort, than individual, to effect all this.
Hoping to receive assurance of your personal presence at the time named, I am, Yours truly,
JOHN S. WISE.