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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



and mark his hares aud rabbits on the side as the 

 shepherd does his flocli, so that when found straying we 

 might pound them at once, the case would be some- 

 thing more of a parallel. As it is, such a plan would 

 not be altogether so outrageous as some might imagine. 

 A Sussex gentleman I met the other day, not a heavy 

 game preserver, but who has a little quiet shoo'-ing of 

 Ms own, gave me the following anecdote :— During the 

 past sc'ason he killed a few fine fat pheasf.nts, to whicii 

 his cook called his attention, as all remarkable for haying 

 no back claw. He couldj not cxnlain this at the time, 

 but meeting the head keeper of a neighbouring establish- 

 ment a day or two after, he began to tell him the story, 

 as rather a curious fact in natural history. He had got 

 no further, however, than " they were in famous condi- 

 tion, and had no back claws," when the other savagely 

 interrupted him, with " Why, dang it ! that was our toe 

 mark! You've been eating my pheasants!" as no 

 doubt he had. But such kind of compensation is not 

 too common, and this glorious privilege of doing what 

 you like with your own gets a little lop-sided, when it 

 comes to do what you like with other people's own, too. 

 Just at present the matter is in something of this state : 

 My lord — or my landlord, as you please — has all the 

 pleasure of shooling the game, and all the profit of selling 

 it, while the farmer has the simple satisfaction of keeping 

 it. When I was a lad, I have often ridden by a road- 

 side house, at the top of Dash wood Hill, on the 

 borders of Buckinghamshire, bearing the quaint old 

 sign of " the Five Alls." There was " the parson 

 who preached for all" — " the soldier who fought 

 for all" — and so on, the category closing with " the 

 farmer who paid for all." 1 am really afraid that 

 estimable gentleman is distinguished by the same 

 substantial compliment in this matter of the over-pre- 

 servation of game. He pays dearly enough for the keep 

 of it on his farm. He pays for the keep of the poacher 

 in prison, and he pays for the keep of the man's family 

 in the workhouse. Increased rates and taxes of all 

 kinds speak to this ; and it is not so much a question of 

 how much the landlord gets by every head of game he 

 sells, as how much the tenant loses .' This is the point. 

 To say that a great head of game, or rather of vermin, 

 for I speak to hares and rabbits more particularly, do 

 great injury to the surrounding lands, h to state a truism 

 that nobody will now attempt to deny. But the worst 

 of it is that the injury they effect is almost altogether 

 incalculable. I believe if it could be really proved 

 what harm hares do to farming, tliat the result would be 

 something so astounding as to be scarcely creditable to 

 those noblemen and gentlemen who have so long coun- 

 tenanced such a plague. Experiments have been entered 

 on to show that one, two, or three hares, or even large 

 rabbits, will consume as much as a sheep. This, though, 

 has comparatively little to do with the actual extent oif 

 the evil. I shall prefer taking this on the authority of 

 a gentleman whose name is well known to you all — the 

 late Mr. Philip Pusey, at one time of his life a game- 

 preserver, a President of the Royal Agricultural Society, 

 and the Editor of the Society's Journal. He said, 

 " Even if you ascertain that three or four hares do not 

 eat more than one sheep, you could not estimate the 

 amount of injury to a farmer by the food eaten by an 

 equivalent number of sheep, because the hares are 

 allowed to help themselves and to go everywhere where 

 they ought not to go ; and independently of that, the 

 positive loss, the annoyance to a farmer who has culti- 

 vated his land upon improved principles is very great. 

 It may be a question upon certain kinds of soil, whether 

 it is an injury or not to wheat to be fed down ; but still, 

 as a farmer myself, I should like to have to decide upon 

 it myself whether 1 would have my wheat fed down... 

 It ii an interference willi a farmer's crops ; and where a 



man has been taking pains with his land, and spending 

 a good deal upon artilicial manure, and endeavouring to 

 grow good green crops, it must try his temper very 

 much." And I think we may say his pocket, too. This was 

 some years since ; but all Mr. Pusey then advanced has 

 within these few weeks been confirmed by another well- 

 known agriculturist, Mr. Grey, of Dilston. I consider 

 Mr. Grey an especially good man to quote upon this 

 su!)jcct. As the agent of the Greenwich Hospital 

 Estat< sin tlie North — avery extensive property — hemay 

 in some measure be supposed to side with the owners of 

 the soil, in dying the best for it and carefully keeping its 

 rights intact. On the other part, Mr. Grey himself is 

 by education and inclination a practical farmer, still a 

 judgeat your shows, and amongstyou at your meetings: — 

 " I have never yet, where valuation and arbitration were 

 resorted to, seen the farmer get one-half of what I con- 

 sider he was entitled to. Look at the progress of a 

 single hare. You see a hare enter a wheat field — you 

 see hira pick out a stem here and there in his course 

 over the field ; he will nibble an inch or two from this 

 stem, and he does not stop till he has cut off a great 

 many. It is not that the inch he has consumed has any 

 appreciable value whatever ; but the ear of corn would 

 have been matured which the hare has prevented by 

 cutting the stem off; and if you consider the damage 

 which is done by one individual hare in a wheat field in 

 one night, you will find that the damage done by these 

 animals night after night comes to a considerable extent 

 — it may amount to bushels an acre." Now, we all 

 know how a hare travels. We see from what I have 

 quoted how impossible it would be for a game-preserver 

 to feed her and keep her in his own grounds, even if he 

 were desirous of doing so. As long as there are " fresh 

 fields and pastures new," young wheat, green tares, and 

 sweet turnips, so long will the hare continue to dine out. 

 Let us only try to conceive the mischief swarms of these 

 animals must do ; and to show how they do swarm, let 

 us take the following extract from the Game-book of a 

 nobleman, giving some of the sport towards the end of 

 the year. Here are five consecutive days on the 

 same manor. The party killed — 1st day 178 hares, 2nd 

 day 292, 3rd day 60, 4th day 195, 5th day 77 ; in all 

 802 bares in five days, as well as almost countless phea- 

 sants and rabbits. This is by no means a picked return, 

 but really the first I came across. No man, indeed, can 

 need now bs told of the detriment to good farming aris- 

 ing solely from the over-preservation of game. The effect 

 is not always so palpable at just the first chance; but 

 only look to the lands lying under the covers and plan- 

 tations, and go further in to see the hare-paths, and the 

 terrible devastation that accompanies their progress, I 

 have myself galloped through wheat on the very verge of 

 harvest, on land in the occupation of a near relative of 

 my own, where I was assured I could do no harm ; in 

 fact, the crop was not worth cutting, owing entirely to 

 the game-preserving instincts of an adjoining landlord, 

 who never paid a shilling to those who suffered so much 

 from his propensities — who never gave them a head of 

 game from his bag — and whose keepers were continually 

 trespassing on other people's grounds to look up their 

 game. I have seen these men frequently driving the 

 hares and rabbits back into their own coverts from the 

 fields they had been feeding on. Rabbits do not range 

 so far ; but where they are suffered to abound, it is simply 

 ruin for the farmer to submit to them. They poison the 

 land, as well as rob it of its present produce, while the 

 way in which they increase is really incredible. I 

 may here introduce a letter on the damage done 

 by game, that 1 received after I had written the 

 foregoing. My correspondent is an extensive oc- 

 cupier in one of the best-farmed counties in 

 England ; but farther than this I shall not care to 



