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RICE GROWERS ARM TO WAR ON DUCK INVADERS
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Colusa Planter Declares Guns and Ammunition Are Ready to Protect Crops
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Special Dispatch to The Chronicle.

SACRAMENTO, August 11.—Rice growers of the Sacramento valley, now producing a crop valued in the millions, are buying shotguns and ammunition in large quantities in preparation for an offensive against ducks, which swarm into the fields and damage the crop.

This preparedness movement to protect their crops is being taken in spite of the protests of the State Fish and Game Commission that the killing of ducks out of season for crop protection is illegal, according to Morris Brooke of Sacramento, an extensive grower of the Princeton, Colusa county, section.

GROWERS KNOW OF LOSSES

Brooke declares that "despite all the camouflage that has been used by the fish and game authorities, the growers know that they have lost much valuable grain through the ravages of these birds. Every ounce of cereal is needed this year in the winning of the war, and those farmers are not going to sit idly by and see the ducks eat up their crops. Ducks have come earlier this year, and they are plentiful, too."

The growers are going to see that the Federal agent appointed to investigate damage by ducks to rice gets the growers' side of the question.

RICE BIRDS' NATURAL FEED

"The growers," says Brooke, "fear that this representative will get into the toils of President Frank Newbert of the State Fish and Game Commission, and not get real information on the situation. An impromptu committee of growers to see that this does not happen already is being formed.

"It is utterly ridiculous to say that ducks do not feed on rice. It is the natural food of the duck. I remember that a duck club to which I belonged spent $40 or $50 planting rice in the swamps to attract ducks."
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