MR. LIOYD GEORGE'S "PHEASANTS."

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1911, 20 November 1913, Page 10

MR. LIOYD GEORGE'S "PHEASANTS."

0 PROBLEM OF THE MANGOLDS. In the course of his speech on Hid land question recently, Mr. Lioyd George mado the following statement:— "Here is one farmer wlio was sowing his crops—a field of mangolds. This mail assured me that there was not 0110 mangold out of a dozen which was not pecked and destroyed by pheasants, and that was a field which was clear of tho plantations." The "Daily Mail" subsequently received the following messages from experts in answer to the question: "Do pheasants eat mangolds?":— lord Leicester! Pheasants do no harm - to mangolds. Lord Lonsdale: Mr. George evidently i refers to what lie docs not understand. , I have seen farms, practically valueless i on account of . wire worm, absolutely re- . stored after pheasants reared on fields, . notably 0110 of Lord Aneaster's farms. Editor of tile "Field": In hard weather ; they might eat a little; otherwise pheasants do good in turnip fields, eating the insects. Mr. W. P. Pycraft (author of books on ' birds): Statement untrue. Mr. "William Smith, Newstead, Notts (farmer): Pheasants eat mangold bulbs, especially when short of food. Hr. Henry Chaplin, M.P.: I should never feed them on mangolds myself. If I did neither Mr. Lloyd George nor anyone else would care much to eat them, f The need of legislation to save the mangold crop of the country from destruc--1 tion exists only, I suspect, in his fertile | imagination. ' Mr. Walter 15. Collinge (author of "The " Food of Some British Wild Birds"): t Never to my knowledge. Far more beneficial than injurious. Bulk of food inr jurious insects and weeds. 'Wood-pigeons . or rooks probably the culprits. j Captain E. G. Pretyman, M.l\: Pheas- , ants do occasionally pick a few boles in 'mangold during a long drought. ' Professor Newstead (entomologist of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who went with a Government commission to Nvassaland, Central Africa, to study Ihe tse-tsc fly and sleeping sickness): I know of no incriminating, evidence.