Brer Rabbit

New Zealand Tablet, 1 October 1908, Page 10

Brer Rabbit

From advance sheets of the New Zealand Official Year-Book we learn that the Dominion's output of frozen rabbit has fallen off grea ly s.nce 1900-the drop in export values representing ?e,l? Iy « C f ° rtUne - The CXport Of other f '™ e » 1-oducts except beef) went upward at the rate of nearly 25 0 per cent, b ween xooo and ,005. -• But the rabbit has Lien off as an asset. In 19 00, New Zealand exported 6,040,047 of the burwer'eCed"l^,3l^ 144 ' 6165 ta «bWt. *ere expo, ted, and they yielded a return of only tht fl i Z^' UliS ha " dful Of comfort in the official figures : s also tTh ,"^ " ° f a " ati ° rtal asset than before > he is also probably less of a national pest.

tween w* "' l ]° WV<ir ' a streak - <>t good in most things. Beto hymn 8 T ' PCaCe had "«°«« moments' that he devoted comes t v .- ThC tsgCr " Said to be '° rl right Wen yer PohU 'of rr I?',' PreSid^ nt RR ° Osevelt admires 'good ye" Jo Brl W p-K? nd , fightCr> thC griZ2^ bear - And «™

be the dead, one. And the welcome flow -of shekels that comes from over-sea year by year for his fur and skin and corpus redeems him from the charge of being a wholly unmixed evil. ' There are,' said Brer Rabbit's new knight-errant in the Sydney Morning Herald, ' millions of acres in the pastoral districts of Australia that have never seen a farm tool or plough and furthermore yast areas have been trampled down by generations of sheep and cattle. Has it ever occurred to the grazier that the rabbit, by- burrowing and scarifying the soil is actually increasing the productiveness of the land. . . When the squatter has eradicated the rabbit how is the rabbit's useful work going to be done? If he is to reap the present productiveness of his soil he will have to spend more money in ploughing than it costs him at present to keep the rabbit under.' Which led the Sydney Freeman to remark : ' Well, at first the squatter would feel a bit lonely ; but after a while even the terrors of the plough might be softened by the reflection that, though his friend the rabbit might be an excellent servant, he demanded a high rate of wages when he claimed the whole of the produce of the land. Ilinc ilia lacrymce.'

In Uncle Remus's old plantation legends, the king of animal cunning is not Brer Fox, but Brer Rabbit. Some years ago a deputation from the Pasteur Institute in Paris came to Australia to shake salt on the latter 's tail. They failed. Last j'-ar Dr. Danysz and his virus for the extermination of the rabbit in Australia also ' went ' under.' Thus far, Brer Rabbit has scored in every round chiefly by his voluminous fecundity— "gainst dog and gun, against great organised ' drives,' against the trapper, against poisoned dainties and deadly gas and against the virus of the bacteriologist. Brer Man may, howeve,-, yet find among his growing microscopic menagerie a microbe with a more potent virus than that of Dr Danysz to h-t loose in the big warrens of Australia and New Zealand. And UuMi Brer Rabbit must look once more to his armor