The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1891. COUNTRY MATTERS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume XX, Issue 1522, 13 February 1891, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1891. COUNTRY MATTERS.

With all our talking we do not do much to relieve ourselves of our troubles. Hares come down from the hills and bark our fruit trees and ruin our vegetables, and we grumble at their doings, and threaten, and there is an end of it. Blackbirds, too, worry us terribly. They are the biggest fruit eaters of the whole flying battalion, aud yet both hares and blackbirds are protected animals, and if it came to the law we must not touch them. Isn't this rubbish ? Surely the first thing we should d© would bo to have them at our mercy, and we could then devise means for their lessening, for any talk of extermination in either case is ridiculous, and merely shows how ignorant of the case the proposer is. That is the first thing to do then as far as the law is concerned, to have the right to destroy hares and blackbirds whenever it suits you, and that once granted good results might follow. There if* another matter within the bounds of existing law that might bo well altered as far as Akaroa is concerned. Every now and then, say once a month or so, the fishermen who set their nets for kawhai, moki, and butterfish, find amongst them a silvery scaled trout who has made the voyage round from some of the southern creeks most probably. Hβ is nearly always in splendid condition, painted in bright colors by the rush of the salt water, and as delicate a pink inside as many of his salmon cousins of the Old Country. He is found dead or dying in the net, and if he or she, as the case may be, were returned to the ocean would simply float on the surface for the benefit of shags and gulls, and yet under existing circumstances what is to be done ; the net was not set for them, but there they are. If the fisherman tries to dispose of them the law says where is your license, and a heavy fiae is inflicted. So these beautiful fish have to be eaten by the person catching them who does not appreciate them or know how to cook them, or sold in defiance of the law, or thrown away and wasted. Now it many were caught it would be all right, but as we say a dozen or two a year are all that are captured, and it would never pay to take out a selling license more especially as half a dozen is probably the lot that falle to one fisherman. If it stopped increase or in any way marred the efforts of the Acclimatisation Society we should be the first to say make it penal to sell, but it doesn't, and the few that are caught by accident in this harbor might be openly sold without the shadow of damage to the safety and increase of their race elsewhere. Therefore we say the law wants alteration in this caee as well as in that of the blackbirds and the hares. Now the sparrows are a dreadful nuisance if you like, the little beggars are everywhere, and in spite of recent eloquent pleas in their behalf, they do much more damage here than good. No one can set cabbnge or turnip, or any other seed without their interference. They calmly wait till the seed germinates, and then eat the sweet bottom, and leave the sprouts in rows of silver threade for the disgusted farmer to contemplate. Bless you, he doesn't care about their having breakfasted on a worm if they have dined on his cabbage ! Besides, they are getting gradually educated here to enjoy vegetable food more and ; more. They have begun tackling peas in the pod this year, and we know some

growers who have stacks who say they have taken 25 and 30 per cent, of them. Perhaps they are not so black as they are paintei, hut still they levy very heavy contributions indeed, and it is quite time they were brought to reason. How is this to be done ? " Quite easily " replies one of our country friends. " Wait till the middle of winter, and then feed the sparrows for a few days with grain. At a given date at the end of these few days, let everyone lay down the same kind of grain poisoned with strychnine, not arsenic, for that has been proved by no means efficacious, and the result will be most disastrous to the sparrows and beneficial to the gardener." The scheme is well worth trying, and we hope to see it put into operation this winter.

As to the fruit, it is worse eaten every year. Till this season we never saw so manj apples destroyed, Any sweet summer apples like the Devonshire qaarendon or Deardon pippen has suffered with a vengeance. In our own knowledge two trees of quarendons were stripped in an hour or two, and all soft sweet apples share the same fate. Apricots, too, suffered more severely this season from birds than in any previous year, and for the first time we have seen pear trees covered up to keep the fruit from pillagers In fact the birds ara coming it so strong that it is getting a case of the immediate survival of the fittest. What we have first to do, however, is, as we have pointed out, to remove any legal restrictions as to dertroying the pillagers. That once accomplished, we must take means to lessen their inroads on oar pleasant and profitable possessions. We muat leave further remarks on this wide and important subject to another issue.