DANGER FROM RABBITS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15889, 9 April 1915, Page 7

DANGER FROM RABBITS.

nuw iu uuiyibhi int rtai. ORGANISATION" ESSENTIAL Te.stiiio.vt regarding the growth of the rabbit pest in the Auckland Province is accumulating. "So serious has the trouble been," declared one agriculturist, that one man's property has depreciated considerably in value. The owner had taken 150 head of beef a year off the place, but the production of fat stork has now been reduced to nil. The people should wake up to the. extent of the. danger. The creation of rabbit boards is the best method, and the sooner they get busy all over the province the better for ail concerned. The farmers are co-operating at Drury this year to deal with the pest, but I am convinced that a board should be constituted in every county, thus ensuring that the pest would be dealt with in a businesslike manner. "Recently, a man 1 know bought 800 acres, and he erected rabbit-proof tencing all round it. That was extremely expensive, but unquestionably effective. The long spell of dry weather has been very favourable for the breeding of the rabbits, but the recent heavy rains will have filled the watercourses, where the rabbits make their burrows, and many thousands will have been drowned. The farmers may not see the rabbits in their particular locality, and feel that there is no need for immediate activity, but the danger is that -while at one time there may be no rabbits, a little later they will he seen in countless numbers. They seem to come in great waves, and the county that is prepared has an organisation capable of performing enormously beneficial work."