UNKNOWN

Dunstan Times, Issue 788, 25 May 1877, Page 4

UNKNOWN

The following letter, signed “W, A. Low,” appears in tiro Lyttelton Times : Sir, —In common with many others whose property >may ultimately be devastated by the rabbit, 1 have been led to take a keen interest in the question of effectually and economically dealing with him, under such conditions us now exist upon many of tiro runs in the Southern portion of Otago. The rabbit seems to bo fairly installed in possession of a large area of •country, and existing in such immense numbers, and increasing with such extraordinary rapidity, that hitherto no attempts to exterminate, or materially to reduce his numbers, have met with any success. One thing appears to be perfectly •clear, and that is that brute force, in the shape of swarms of men and dogs hunting and scouring through a mu will not soon mitigate the evil caused by rabbits ; while, at the same time, it is quite certain they inflict enormous damage upon the poor slice] >, who are perpetually harrassed by the never ending operations of the rabbi tlumteis. I have been informed that in many instances the hunters and their dogs have caused more direct and immediate losses to runholdeis than the rabbits themselves. The question appears to be how to “ catch your hare,s" and after having caught him, how best to cook and utilise him. In the first place, I think that upon all accessible grounds it will be found practicable during the winter season, when grass becomes scarce and poor in quality, to entrap large numbers of rabbits in decoy paddocks, scattered here and there throughout the runs, and located in the most densely inhabited portions of the country being dealt with, such decoy paddocks being rabbit-proof fenced and sown down roughly with clovers, rape, (fee., &c., and having the gates fixed, so that they can be shut by pulling a rope, or by some simple automatic machinery. In this way, when a little snow falls, or when the* ground is covered with hoar frost, thousands of rabbits may be caught in a single night. By this plan they are caught in England in hundreds during the winter, and it has been proved that rabbits will, at, that season, travel four or five miles during the night to have a feed at such decoys. If every landowner in a district were simulaneous y to go at the vermin upon this principle, it is impossible to say how many hundreds of thousands of them might be caught during the winter months. The second part of the question now comes for consideration—how to cook and utilise the rabbit when ho is caught. In America (an eminently practical country) the grasshopper question, which is a much more serious question than the rabbit question, is already being turned to profitable account. In early spring the surface of the ground in the Western States is absolutely alive with grasshoppers. They can then be collected in large numbers, and both fowls and pigs are said to be now successfully fattened on them. When wheat fell in Illinois, a good many years ago, to 8d per bushel, the farmers, instead of selling it, converted it into pork. Why should not arrangements be made by those interested to erect enclosures for pigs in the densely burrowed purls of their lands, and the pigs fattened on rabits, while the skins are exported to London. By giving each pig a little oats or wheat occasionally the pork ought to be, and I doubt not would prove to be, of excellent quality. Pigs are known to be fond of rabbits In favorable places near bush, central establishments might be formed for pig feeding, and the rabbits boiled by experienced cooks, an odd onion being thrown in to tickle the palate of the porker. Southland may yet beat the world for its potk. If some such simple and inexpensive plan, universally adopted, should prove unsuccessful in practically sub doing tin; rabbit, then there is nothing for it but to go in for wholesale rab-bit-proof fencing and subdividing of runs and properties, and killing them off each block or sub-division in detail by the above and other means. The expense of such an attempt will bn so enormous as to bo cut of the reach of the great majority of leaseholders as well as freeholders, it a] paronlly means ruin to all round, for if the great bulk of the occupiers of the soil are absolutely unable to do their share in this, apparently the only certain way of eradication, then there is little use in rich men throwing their money away. For, supposing they succeeded in reducing the rabbits upon their own properties to insignificant numbers, In this large expenditure, they would be kept constantly at, while myriads of their enemies were being bred upon their neighbors’ deserted lands surrounding thorn. Practically speaking, it would be impossible under such circutit'lances to seriously mitigate the evil. Every flood would break away the necessarily temporary rabbit-proof fencing on creeks and rivers, and the hungry creatures outside would (hen sweep in upon the preserved pastures and despoil the Dives of his purple and line linen. If ever anything wanted dealing with by a Government it, appears to me that this is it. The evil has now become so vast that it is practically impossible for individual suffcrers.to deal with it. It is no use asking who is to blame. The time for that is past The Government, as representing the

colony, nry bo*.ml to take stcp-< to recover, as soon as possil 10, to profitable occu| ation the very largo extent of territory which has been lost to settlement. Why should it allow the evil to become worse and worse and every day become more difficult to cure? It is of no consequence whether the lands are in public oirprivato hands. Hero are a million of acres of the beat land in tbo colony, capable of sustaining thousands of taxpayers, placed in such a position that the present handful of owners or occupiers are rendered unable to live upon it Surely some practical scheme can ho devised by which the colony may again he put in a position to reap the benefit from these great areas of land, which it has lost for the present, by what can be regarded as nothing short of an inexorable calamity.