CRISIS GOOD FOR RABBITS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21361, 2 June 1939, Page 10

CRISIS GOOD FOR RABBITS

LESS SUPPORT FOR WAR ON PESTS (Special—By Air Mail) LONDON, May 13. The international crisis has brought longer life to thousands of England’s wild rabbits, which do £70,000,000 worth of damage every year. A company formed in London to conduct mechanised warfare on the pests announced this week that it was going into voluntary liquidation, owing to a falling-off of support since last September. When Rural Service Association (England) Ltd. was incorporated four years to fight the rabbit menace with modern methods, great landowners supported the schemes. Fifty great estates in England and Scotland were cleared of rabbits by humane methods. Thousands of rabbits died painless deaths in their burrows from hydrocyanic acid gas. “Orders from landowners fell off at the time of the September crisis and have dwindled ever since,” said Mr W. E. Webb, governing director of the company, at a meeting of creditors. “That is why we are going into voluntary liquidation.” Meanwhile, Mr A. E. Farr, a London civil engineer who has a farm in Hertfordshire, offers to pay £lOOO to charity if it can be proved that the method he has discovered and developed to eradicate the pest of the wild rabbit is ineffective. He makes this offer in a booklet, “From Poverty to Prosperity in Agriculture.” He says: “I have discovered a complete cure for this pest. My experiments have been watched by experts, who can testify to their complete success.” It would appear that Mr Farr’s cure is based on the destruction of the rabbits’ warrens.