The Stars. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1903. THE ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7699, 7 May 1903, Page 2

The Stars. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1903. THE ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETY.

The Acclimatisation Society is one of the livest local bodies we possess, as the brisk competition for its twenty seats and the privilege 6i paying a guinea and' devoting a considerable portion of time gratuitously to its business amply testifies. The Society |s, in fact, a particularly strong one in every respect, both in the composition of its administration, in its finances and in its scope of applied usefulness. The report this year is encouraging reading, and the only fly in the Society's ointment of success appears to be the uncertainty of its tenure of the ground upon which its batching and breeding operations are carried out. It has been magnanimous 1 enough not to attribute jealousy to its landlord, the Domain Board, though the latter Association must , have looked often longingly enough at the well-filled- coffers of its tenant and sighed to think of its own condition of financial starvation. But the Society 'has a grievance, nevertheless. It has digged a ditch — several ditches, in fact — and 1 , though it has not fallen into them itself, nor were they apparently dug with any sinister intent, still the authorities that be, in the shape of the Domain Board, have demanded that these ditches -should! be filled up, because in some indefinite way they have acquired! the notion that the digging of ditches is detrimental to the trees in the Gardens. The only evidence in support of this theory is that one old monarch of the fores^ to give it a title more of respect than application, grown " old and wan and* grey and past desire," -has chosen to "up and die" at an inopportune moment, in close proximity to the ditch which the Society has dug. The expert arboriculturist when consulted has had' no 'hesitation in pronouncing- the two facts as having no association of cause and effect, but the Board', filled with a far superior wisdom to the immaturo pronouncements of silly gardeners, has decreed otherwise. The horrid suggestion that ifc is ai case of dog in the manger ia hereby rejected as being quite impossible in association with such a respectable body as the Domain Board, whilst the foolish insinuation that even* if the Acclimatisation Society had killed a trea in its effort to breed a few thousand more trout the expenditure was more than justified is ridiculous on tlie fa;ca of ib. So is the Society's protest to Sir Joseph Ward. The gentlemen who constitute the Acclimatisation Society have done nothing except give their services gratuitously for a number of yeara in administering the processes of acclimatisation. They have turned loose a few million fishes in our rivers to the imminent danger of anybody who wants to "go in and swim," and have stocked our lulls and woodlands with birds which have to be- shot to keep them in proper subjection. Probably a peccant Minister, -with a taste for trout and a relish for partridges, will find some way of giving the Society control of its nefarious breeding operations. Personally we hope so, for whilst our theoretical sympathies are all with tho unfor^ tunate Domain Board, our gastronomic sympathies aie certainly with the Acclimatisation Society. The temptations of quail upon toast will lead the most unimpeachable journalist astray, and after all a live trout is very much bfctter in the ordinary scheme of things than a dead sycamore.