WEEDING OUT THE RABBITS.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13649, 14 February 1913, Page 8

WEEDING OUT THE RABBITS.

Since the publication of Mr H. A. Hunt's theory that Australia has nothing to fear from droughts whilst she ktx^ irabbits in .vemsonabfo .chedk, ebrong support has come from station manager^ and the secretaries of great estates and finance companies in Melbourne. One of the foremost of those said reccnf.v:— "Wo understand rabbits now, and quite agree with Mr fhnit. Wt- do not any that we have alvsolutely nothing tr> fear from poorness of rainfall; but we 'admit'that t!w> bad yeans up to 1902 were largely duo to rabbits." Melbourne station men have conic to hate rabbits like .poison. Tho :vvor oat them. "Rabbits shonl'3 be like chicken, for they feed on tho bc-ot Australia has," said or.o. "They arc cold ac poultry elsewhere, and n\T> recorded as a good Kul>stituto for chicken. For my part, I would niuko it a penal offence to trado in r?Jibits. What my company a'or.e lr^s s!K?;ifc in fighting rabbits would nmke up for aJI the losa that would a eerie through the stoppage, of tho rabbit industry. Rabbits have cost Australia hundreds of millions of pounds. Quite apart from tho enormous'expenditure nowadays upon rabfjifc lighting, isudi as poisoning, ploughing, wire ueUiag fencing, and closing up fieldSj to permit of the poisoning of t!» dams, there is all the loss in feed. Most of tho losses of those terrible BCH'on yea?'G known as tho drought yarns enn lo traced t« ra-bbite. People Ijf.ve only tv remember that tho export estimate is that ten rabbits e&t aa much a6 one shoop, and they see what h plague we have. My estimate, from actual experience, is that five-rabbits <-<\l an much as one sheep."