TEE COST OF RABBITS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1763, 10 February 1888, Page 2

TEE COST OF RABBITS.

The battle with (he rabbit peat is costlou th*se Australasian colonies an enormnu* amount of money every year, and nv\ s • 'tnti wholesale method of extermiuatin.4 the creatures it . discovered and pnt Int • practice, it seems hardly possible to form any estimate of what the tuture cost vri 1 be, A New Ztaland iqitatter, who has e^n nearly or altogether rained bj rabbits, has writ'eti a pamphlet, Id whfob ha gives a record of htt exp> ri»aoe with the put. He write*: -'ln Australia. 10 yuars ago. 'he puopie grudgingly sp*nt a few thou •id poandi fighting the rabbit*. Now they are sorry they did uot ■pc« d a few millions trie-Uifiatitiiem ; and la 10 years heco»» they will be eorry they dli cot spend 50 mi lions of pounds." Tula looks like an exaggerated statement bot the Sydney "Mail" s»yi :— "Our »abbit» are vow oiati g, irrespective <•» the value of gran* consumed, about £10! C per day, so tr>« 60 million estimate may not be so great an exaggeration as some readers may soppose." The following items will give some idea of what the rabbits are costing the various governments. In Victoria the »monat required f r the work « f rabbit extirpation on O"wn lands during the financial yeat 1887 Bin £25 010. Tha money provided by Parliament for thn destruction of rabbi « «>as In 1879 80. £I2W ■ 188 >-8l £2600; 1881-82, £10,000; 1883 83 4!12.< 00 ; 18*3-84, £ 0 000 ; 1883 85 £12 000; 1585^6, £33 000; and ie 188* 87, £25,422. The sum of £33,00 C voted m IBi6 86 included £11,010 expended dnriug the previous year, whiob increised txpenditnre was re-dered Imperative m irder to oarry ( ut tho provisions of tho new Act paawd la 1884. la IS©* Sjuth Wa'^s the coat of administration for 1885-86 was £15,300. The expenditare m JN ttW doath Wains hat b»«en nearly £120 000 per annum for the 1 st thr § y ars, and, judging from recent reports, will not be less this year, whilst «t the same tim* the pest has increased rather than derrovied. In South Australia, notwithstanding the unfortunate depression that existed there, the expenditure from the pasHiug of the 1835 Aot to the ißt June, 1886, is given ai £4^,688, nearly donbe «.u a. In New Zealand at least £40,000 h-ss been expended yearly for tome itue p«st. It la s^id that m Sou'h Australia rahbita are spreading m an alarming mannor. Experiments are there being carried on with diseased rabbits «h«it had been imported; though snme rattle* wore urging th*t before g vernmcat • : 0 iooed the sprtftdrg of any d's.aßM, i«t» oountry should know a lit le tnore about It. T-'ie «qu«tfcer previously alMed to, considers that m the OtUtie «iiQ robb<ts there is nothing better or m >re 1 0 momfoal than feDoing. Ho was:— 'Thß fences ehou'd run up t' e "pura and along the sunny aide of tlw aaddl.s Ihe fences across flats, liable tv bo flooded, ould o^v.oualy fte «o very hard to m .intaia effective that they *t prtaen' nppeu'r to re our great »st difficulty Bui wou d i ,t pay b tter to keop'a uxnn at every bu h foncf, thab to keop him inside of it as we do now. catobrag the rabbjtß af t*r they have done tfyo da^iajie? In many pne-s cquiJ r^n up to the bl-ffa wherpthey would be vejy e»eyto rntintaiu. Three-foot nottjog of 'J inch m* ah ia quite sufficient, if only 4 inches m the grouud, because a rabbit will not start to burr jw far enoueh baok to get un^or it, but starts bo close that the wire baffles it. A strained wire six inches abovo tho nettiog njakea it au indefinite ani nwkward object to jump • and then a rabbit is pliydoa.ly unfitted to climb, bo that there eeod be no fear of ench contingencies " Though iv the Auokland ppovicj? tho rabbit p«st is as nothing compared with what it is m the : doutb Idland 1 and m Australia still a northern exohange ur^es thut settlers should use every endeavor to keeo rabbits m check, and every en o^uragement should be given to sportsman &n.d |ad.^ to sjioot <md] hijut thorn.