Habbit Farming. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2516, 4 June 1902, Page 10

Habbit Farming. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — Much lias been &aid, done, and written about the rabbit nuisance of late, but bunny is as lively n3 ever, and, judging from the present fetate of things, will continue to br> so. The late Sir John M'Kenzie said onre, when rabbit-tinning factories opened, that they eucouraged rabbit-farming. I did not agree with him then, but I do now, and since freezing the carcases has started rabbit- farming has become a huge trade. Rabbit inspectors are almost a dead letter. It is the buyers that rule the roost now. They go around the coufttry buying up all the '-lcund llioy cannot get any other way, giving the landowner f=o much down or i.o "niufcli ncr kuaihed. suid Ilia traoner i*

compelled to give to a certain buyer or gft. A. great many landowners will not poison, preferring to wait till the • season cornea round so that they can get their little cheque and get the rabbits killed into the bargain. Others do lay a little poison round their boundaries to keep their neighbours quiet, and one man I knew laid pollard, but forgot to put poison in with it. Yes, the inspectors are a thing of the past. I never see one looking round for rabbits. When I do see one he is nearly always at home or perhaps at a saleyard. I think the man at the head of affairs ought to waken- them up a. bit. A few years ago they used to do ai little, but now nothing. a!s the buyer advances they drop back. If the department did its duty we would not read of men catching 24-0 in one night or 320 in 24- hours. How quickly the Lawrence farmers cried when the chairman of a meeting there not long ago said something ought to be done with the rabbits. It shows that they must farm them, and so they do elsewhere. — I am, etc., Oxe Who Knows. Dunback, May 28.