MR POWNALL to the RESCUE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1785, 9 March 1888, Page 4

MR POWNALL to the RESCUE.

-> "While the coonies are awaiting the advent of M Pasteur's representative with his consignment of microbes m order to the conduct of experiments to determine whether m the germs of chicken cholera science is able to furnish an absoute and complete remedy for the plague of rabbits which has become m most of the colonies a national misfortune, it may be quite worth while to consider whether th<Te is hope m this direction only, or whether any o her plan than that of the propagation of disease affords any prospect of success. We, thereiore, very willing call attention to the contents of a circular on the subject of "The habbit J est," which has just been published by Mr Charles G. Pqwnal.l. oL Wellington. That gentleman contends that the annihilationists are on the wrong track altogether. He quotes " Chambers' Journal " to show that poisoned grain is a failure ; one station of 100 000 acres m the South Island having expended £3000 upon this method of destruction without success, the country becoming so overrun with rabbits thai the flock it carried was reduced m five years from 80,000 to 44,000. Dogs and guns were tried, bat m vain, and ferrets also failed to cope with the hosts of bunny. Indeed, Mr Pownall declares that the vermin now being introduced (stoats, weasels, and ferrets) will not only not put an end to the rabbit pest, but that they themselves " will prove an intolerable pest without affording any appaiintly satisfactory result." He ridicules the proposals of M. Pasteur, declaring that " the rabbits migrate and cannot be inoculated over vast territories." He also regards the 11 fencing " proposals as " yet another fallacy," averring that " if one 6ide of the fence swarms with rabbits anxious to move on, they will surely find their way if they are left unmolested." This leads up to his own proposal, which is that the rabbits should be caught and utilised instead of being destroyed. His plan is described as follows : — " Take any boundary \7ire-proof fence, and use it m sections as a back portion of your trap, widen it with the same material on the rabbit side, say, four chains m length by half a chain m width. Then m front, running parallel to the boundary fenc*», place at equal distances, say four lifting gates about seven feet wide each, and so arrange that nothing but rabbits can enter. Bait this decoy with some common grain, or green stuff, daily, and the rabbits will travel for miles to this feeding ground, provided no dogs or guns are permitted to interfere with their privacy. Their nature is to He hidden away all day and to feed by night, and they will very soon find out the spot chosen for their provender ; care must be laker, however, that there is nothing 'effc m he trap to scare them, that everything is, m appearance, similar to the boundary fence itself. The gates being closed m the early morning, no refuse must be left af er every rabbit caught has been carried away. The trap gates must then be closed for the day, and the ground rebaited tor the next night's action." Mr Pownall is sanguine not only that his plan will an wer, but states that he has plans, specifications, and photographs ready, showing trapping paddocks suitable for hilly as well as level country, and adds that they may be made of any size required from half-aii-acre t-> a hundred acres, the gates to be fitted up m any number required, lifted and fixed for action before sundown and closed b fore sunrise, falvery rabbit within the enclosure will, he says, thus be secured alive and without injury to their pelts or carcases ; and a3 the process is simple and inexpensive, he even suggests that "the rabbits may possibly be fonnd more profitable than sheep, and probably will ba regretted as they disappear. All this looks very well m theory, but we confess that wo are not anything like so sanguine as Mr Pownall that it would work as well m practice. t*till it would be quite worth while to give it a trial, and we should be pleased to hear that it had been tried with the success which the inventor anticipates. By-the-bye, though it can hardly, we should think, be « laimed as an invention, as it is vastly like the " corral " used by West Indians for trapping' wild animals from time immemorial.