The Farm.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 10, 9 June 1894, Page 3

The Farm.

• RABBITS. (to thb editor;. Sib, —About three months ago 1 wrote to a friend in Canada for information about the Canadian rabbit. friend is settled near the head of liake Ontario and he has lived there for many years. I thought that as Canada is a much older colony than Hew Zealand, that possibly the Canadians might have discovered some method of keeping the rabbits in check that might be worth imitating. My friend replied as follows : “ The rabbits with you mustbe a great pest, we have very few here. What we liave are not like the Old Country rabbits at all. They do not burrow. They turn white in the winter time, and they have ears like a hare.” How I cannot understand how it is that in a good fertile country like Canada, the common grey rabbit is not to be found. Can it be that the non-burrowing rabbit is ablo to overcome and expel the grey rabbit P Perhaps some of your readers may have resided in Canada, and they may be able to throw some light on the matter. If it were not for the burrowing habits of the common grey rabbit, we could soon make them scarce •nough. —Yours &e., A. T.

Note. —I would like to write a few words about the introduction of weasels"as a help in the way of keeping down the rabbits. I do not approve of stoats or ferrets running about loose, but the little weasel, or “ kane ” as it is called in some parts of England, is a creature of different habits. The weasel, unlike the stoat or ferret, does not incline to travel about much. It will remain in the hedge where it happens to take up its abode, until food fails it, and then it will go to some other hedge. The weasel is seldom guilty of worrying poultry, they cannot climb up walls as rats do. I lived for twenty years in a district of Scotland where weasels were quite common, and I never knew or heard of their killing poultry, but they never tire hunting after rabbits and rats. I have seen a weasel go into a rabbit burrow and bring out one young rabbit after another until they were all bronght out ; on lifting them I found they were all dead, though still quite warm. There was no visible wound, except a small puncture at the side of the throat. The weasel is the check provided by nature for keeping the rabbits within bounds ; by introducing the rabbit and leaving out the weasel we have destroyed tbe balance of nature. It is well known that the gorse hedges are the strongholds of tbe rabbits. If we had weasels to hunt along the hedges they would drive the rabbits out, and compel them to deposit their young in the open land, where they would be easily got at. One weasel is worth a dozen ferrets as a rabbit destroyer. The ferret eats the flesh, and one full-grown rabbit will keep it for several days. The weasel sucks the blood, and leaves the curcase. It ought also to be borne in mind that weasels render valuable help in keeping rats out of stacks of grain. In the Old Country the farmers were very glad when they noticed weasels in the vicinity of their stacks. —A. T.