RABBITS OR DROUGHT.

Mataura Ensign, 7 June 1907, Page 1

RABBITS OR DROUGHT.

WHICH IS THE WOKSE EVIL!" On tho rabbit question the 'Pastoralists Ueview' remarks us follows—All Uiiugs considered, a s life iu Australia would be an ideal existence but tor two things—drought and rabblt8 i—»" (J w ,hich is the worse evil of thu two? the droughts occur periodically, and are sometimes disastrous and of long duration; but there are intervening periods of plenty, during which enhanced values for wool and stock compensate iu no small measure for the ossos oaused by droughts. On the other hand, rabbits are a permanent curse: in drought times or good seasons they are incessantly cutting the ground, or grass, from under the feet of the stockraising industry, and tho enormous annual outlay for their destruction continues whether seasons are fair or foul. 1 lie greater portion of Australian pasture lands can stand long periods Without rain, but a limit is eventually reached, mid the hardy grasses give out, and stock commence to die. Then the rabbits make their presence felt by eating out the dead pastures to the very root*. After they have left the country absolutely bare of feed, they die too; but by that timo the season has generally improved and tlie rabbits weed up iu thousands and effectually keep down what little growth is the result of muchneeded, though perhaps scanty, rawfall. Then, when the feed becomes plentiful, the rabbits increase to millions, so that when the period of plentyis again on the wano rabbits are present in overwhelming numbers to swarm over the country and quickly reduce it to a bareness quite unwarranted by the Season alone. This is what is happening in the southern half of New South Wales at the present timo. The rainfall has been very scanty, but the hardv grassos would have held out much longer had it not been for the inroad of the rabbits, and the dry time now being experienced is referred to as the • rabbit drought." It is estimated that six or eight rabbits eat and destroy as much grass as one sheep, so that the notiial loss to tho country, due to tho lessened carrying capacity, could 1m» estimated if the millions of rabbits could bo counted. After all, thra, tho riibbits are worse than droughts. The squatter has reliof from droughts in the magnificent seasons that intervene, but the rabbits are with him all the time, gnawing, like tho vermin they are, at tho very foundations of Aust.'atia'k greatest industry.