CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4448, 19 June 1893, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

Babbit Trapping in North l/l/airmpa, (To the Editor of the W.D. Times.) in the North "VVairarapa Will Boon grow tired of using traps, teeing that their bad example iB having its effect upon the South Valley settlers, who now and again are led away into following their lead—much to my horror and disgust, For the use of trapping will quickly bring us back the rabbit pest again in the Lower Valley. I ascribe out immunity from the pest for the past seven years to the non- use of trapping chiefly,-amongst our other remedial nieasures. The North Volley has fenced and trapped, and the present state of the Wiiarearaa district is a sufficient proof of the uselessness of thcße two remedies. It is of course a matter of absolute impossibility to rid Jand from a flood of ratbits where traps are used, The more traps the more rabbits being tho axiom. That axiom will be found as true as the sun, I fancy the inutility of rabbitfencing is beginning to dawn upon my friesfagi the North, and I hope soon to bMKi abandon trapping. Some years ago I told them that any man who laid a trap deserved six months imprisonment. Of courso I did Dot mean this literally, but I wished trapping made a penal offence, seeing what a curse it is to any district using it. Of course if one'traps all must trap. But what I wish now to refer to is this. Thai my Northern fellow settlers do not use enough men in their plan of rabbit suppression. I use two men; Mr Pharazyn two; Otaiia half a man; Mr Riddiford perhaps three men; Mr Humo half a man; Mr Russell quarter of a man] Mr Buchanan six or seven men (but he believes in trapping a little, and then again he is fenced). Well, Sir, in comparison with our Lower Valley measures, whatnumber are employed, say.at jftnifcpetbJ Why only on< hundred men I Can any person saj that such a number is sufficient t( cope with the pest properly. Hardly I really think thai nothing less than a thousand men' are required upon that station, Take the case of Sai Francisco. There, in consequence o killing off the kit-fox and other natura enemies, the jack-rnbbit has assutnet the peßt form, and the people havi determined to put . a stop to it. Si they fenced in an immense drive, an< eorne four or five thousand Bottler, assembled with their horses and dog and drove the rabbita into a corral where an immense slaughter followed fully twenty thousand dead rabbit lying in heaps upon the ground, Now Sir, that is work 1 That is the wa . tie jSorth Valley should sot, Twont

: tho'usand rabbits killed in one drive I I Twenty thousand rabbits to four , thousand men, two thousand horses, i and, say, four thousand dogs; actually i five rabbits to each man, dog and ! half a horse 1 Of course, two or t three hundred kit-foxes would (if left i aliroand not trappod, and not fenord I out, or in) baYO done tho work equally t with this small army of men ; but • tho people luvo thought differently, and that is why I say that at least] t n thousand men Bhould be.,employed - upon Brancepetli, five hundred upon ■ Kihumingi, five hundred nponloa, anc s »o on ; a couplo of thousand muster- ' ing some fine day, or Bay once a month, with their dogs and horses to t sweep off the rabbits upon Mr Sine- ) key's or the Opaki racecourse. ■ In [ conclusion, sir, lam glad to learn that ■ a disease is breaking out iu the Wbarc- ■ ama amongst the rabbits, I cxpeot • it will be either bladder worm or liver ' rot. If the former the settlers should i givo their dogs doses of areoa nut every two months. 11 the latter, shut I the diseased rabbits up with heulthy ■ ones <iihi then let all go again, spread- . ing the dirty straw about tho warrens. ' Goth diseases wore most effectual on Mr Tully's and on my run, ir, 1885-6. 1 Liver rot spreads quickly. (We have . a" lifting" diieuse among the cattle ' in tho Lower Valley just now, but I this unfortunately has nothing to do with the rabbit,) I would also call the attention of North Valley settlers . to tho fact that I have a dozen weai sels playing about a ditch aud gorse ' fenco at the Dry River, and in and i out the heaps of tow from a flax mill i alongside. The natural enemy require i some such shelter as this. I think the North Valley made a teri rible mistake when turning, out the natural enemy in no; building homos for them as I suggested. It is simply a question of earth homes or slacks, Given a couplo of thousand acres of cold clay country swarming with rabbits. The cure is a dozen or twenty nice, warm, lom'lj»built straw stacks, . well fenced in from sheep and cattle, i Tho natural enomy will quickly find a home therein, and if traps are not used, and proper openings made in the rabbit fences to allow the rabbit to clear out, or the natural enemy to follow its prey, it will be astonishing how quicklj tho pest will disappear. As it was largo sums of money were spent upon stoats, ferrets, and weasels, i which are now up Bangitikei way, linding beautiful shelter nil through - tho bush. I therefore think that common sensoaction Iru been remarkiiblo for its absence in the North ; Valley; in dwilii-g with the natural enemy at any rale. But there is lime to reform even now. Time to give up trapping, and fencing, bi-sulphide fumes and all that nonsense. Time to build the warm stacks I suggest and pin the natural enemy there is in the country to tho land, whero tho rabbits are thick. But if the settlers think that the natural enemy is go- ' ing to stay upon their lands without this warm shelter they will bo mistaken. lam etc., Coleman Phillips, The Knoll, Featherston, June 14th, 1898.