THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



343 



It is a delicate question they do not care to interfere 

 with, ami so they leave it to "the squire, and the tenant, 

 and the keeper to settle amongst themselves. Great people, 

 however, it is said, often find it a difficult thing to hear the 

 truth, and in this case they should hear it far more fre- 

 quently from those who act for them. Is an agent doing 

 his duty when he witnesses in silence a tenantry half ruined 

 by hares and rabbits? and who knows his employer is ridi- 

 culed and abused, if not cursed outright, at every Farmers' 

 Ordinary ia the country ? Within the last ten years or so 

 I have been over the greater part of the United Kingdom. 

 In doing so I have mixed continually with the agricultural 

 classes, and I say advisedly that these heavy game pre- 

 servers are marked men. A ten pound prize for the best 

 bull, or a fine speech at a full meeting, can never outweigh 

 the abuses thej' sanction, and the injustice they commit. 

 The agents often know this butter than their employers; 

 and if any great landowner and great game preserver 

 sUpuld do me the honour to read this paper, I only trust 

 that he will at once summon hia right-hand man before bini, 

 and ask "it there is any truth in all this?" The daniMge 

 the hares and rabbits do to the landlord's own property — 

 the way in which they strip hia trees, and ruin tlie young 

 ash and other timber, comes scarcely within my province. 

 Here a man maj' clearly do what he likes with his own. A 

 rather startling anecdote, though, will show bow far this 

 kind of thing 'may be carried. A nobleman near Loudon 

 has recently given a tenant of some two or three hundred 

 acres or more notice to quit, solely from hia keeping up too 

 great a head of game. It is only right to say that the occu- 

 pier is not an actual fivrmer. By profession a surgeon, he 

 has united with this the pursuits of amateur farming and 

 game preserving; end putting the three together, has, it 

 appears, contrived to do a deal of destniction. A friend, 

 however, in Essex favoured me ou Saturday only with what 

 he well terms "a practical fact" on this feature of the case: 

 — " I have lately been over some hundreds of acres of woods, 

 valuing portions of the underwood for sale, and I believe I 

 may fairly state, that the woods where hares or rabbits 

 are overabundant, are damaged to the extent of nearly 

 one-third in value. That is, in woodlands of fair average 

 growth, and but little game, the underwood will average 

 £1G per acre; but where hares or rabbits are much cared 

 for, from £10 to £11 is the outside value of it." To the 

 landlord then we look, and what is he to do ? In the 

 first place let him be content with real sport instead 

 of wholesale slaughter; and let hiiu fairly try the experi- 

 ment of turning to the farmers to provide this sport for him. 

 Let him break up his bands of watchers and keepers ; they 

 are required for better uses. Let him on principle give the 

 tenants the right to destroy the rabbits " anyhow," and to 

 course the hares. Above all, he must not let the shooting 

 over the tenant's head. If he does not care for it himself, 

 let the other at least be consulted. I know there is a cer- 

 tain kind of hesitation in some quarters as to letting the 

 farmers have the shooting on any terms •, but we are get- 

 ting beyond the time of serfs and slaves ; and I say deci- 

 sively that some of the worst cases have been where a 

 stranger has hired the shooting after, perhaps, the occupier 

 has been for years in comparative quiet. It is then the mis- 

 chief begins. But I have already dwelt on this point, as 

 well as on others, which I shall now leave to your further 

 consideration. To the landlords alone I believe we must look 

 for the remedy, and that is neither unreasonable nor unprece- 

 dented. In fact it is fast coming, and those who still hold 

 hold out will be better, or rather worse and wcrs% known. 

 Jt is now nearly two years since I first put this subject on 

 our list, and many members will bear me out when I say 

 my anxietj' was not so much to associate myself with the 

 question as to see it fully discussed by the Club. However, 

 I have now encountered it, certainly without fear, and I 

 trust without prejudice. My earliest and warmest sym- 

 pathies were with a sportsman's life ■, my later career has 

 been directly associated with the interests of agriculture, 

 and I have here essayed to show how you may steady the 

 balance between them. 



Mr. E. B. Acton (the Temple) said he felt great hesitation 

 in rising, after the interesting and eloquent essay of Mr. Corbet. 

 He was glad that the committee had appointed the question 



for discnssion, as it iivohcd grtat anomalic? f.i d iniquities 

 a' regarded botli the tenant and the labturcr. Still he 

 must say that, ab hough the game laws had their sbusea, they 

 also had their uaes. There waa a vast quantity of land, more 

 especially in the districts lying east of London, which waa in- 

 creased in value by the preservation of game. There was a 

 peculiar sort of soil wh'ch suited gtrne, and which game did 

 well ou. That the over-presrrva'.ion of ,<-;ame waa bad alike 

 iu an agricultural, le^^al and moral point of view, no one 

 could doubt who had paid any attention to the n' alter. The 

 destruction committed by a bevy of pheasants who came down 

 on wheat in wet weather waa awfid to contemplate (laughter) ; 

 and five harea were known to eat aa much as one sheep. 

 Legally, however, farmera had a right to compensation for 

 damage done to the crops by game, and it waa their own fault 

 if they did not enforce it by stipulative claima (" Ob, oh !"). 

 Was he to be told that under a lease the tenant-farmer 

 could not obtain compensation for excessive game-pre- 

 aerving, with the damage which it inflicted? ("No.") 

 He waa of a different opinion. He had heard of a 

 caae in the North of England in which a farmer re- 

 ceived £500 aa compenaation. The question must not be 

 argued in a one-sided way ; they must regard it in a legal as 

 well aa in an agricultural point of view. Morally the over- 

 preservation of game did a great deal of harm. He once wit- 

 nessed a battue in Richmond Park, and he assured them it was 

 one of the most fearful sights he ever saw in his life 

 owing to the number of wounded birds (laughter). A 

 number of royal personagea were firing away at game which 

 seemed to have been driven into the enclosure on purpose to 

 be killed. The unfortunate pheasants never rose at all. It 

 was a complete game-butchery, and he must say that such 

 things tended to demoralize the lower orders of the people. 

 [A voice — " You mean the higher orders" laughter.] He 

 had no objection to that alteration. In hia opinion there was 

 not much difference morally between the lordly batluer and 

 the prowlias poacher; they were both enemies to the good 

 order of society, and promoters of a great social evil. 



Mr. WiLsiiER (WelAyn) eaid the last speaker seemed to 

 think that the farmer might remedy the evil by the terms of 

 his tenancy. He denied that that was the caae. If a person who 

 waa in treaty for a farm demanded the game, it would almost 

 invariably be refused. In his own county, or at least for many 

 miles round hia own locality, no farm could be taken with the 

 game. 



Mr. J. Ckessingham (Carshalton) said, having preserved 

 game for the last thirty years, he had eo managed aa to recon- 

 cile the farmers concerned to his manner of preserving, and he 

 had never had any complaints made against him of injury 

 done by the game. If the game injured the farmer he had a 

 remedy at law, no matter whether the injury arose from rab- 

 bits or from hares. He could have a surveyor, a properly- 

 authorized man, employel to estimate the damage, and the 

 landlord would be liable to the extent of the award, 



Mr. Wilsiier: How long after would the tenant con- 

 tinue to occupy the farm if he had not a lease ? ( Hear, hear.) 



Mr. Cressinghaji continued : He did not think tenants 

 were debarred from seeking reimbursement for damage done 

 by game, by any clauses which might be inserted in a lease. 

 The law waa always open to them, and they might obtain 

 redresa for iujury proved to have been sustained. 



Mr. Alderman Mechi thought Mr. Corbet went too 

 far in saying that hares and rabbits were acting by day aa 

 well as by night As soon as daybreak almost every hare 

 and rabbit, he believed, went to its form, and sat there till the 

 day was over, when it went forth in search of food. Again, 

 he thought Mr. Corbet waa wrong in saying that game did 

 more harm on a highly-cultivated farm than on a poor- 

 cultivated one. He believed the reverae to be the fact ; and 

 what he would recommend hia friends who were troubled with 

 an extraordinary quantity of game to do, waa to farm twice aa 

 high round the wood as they did anywhere else. Complaints 

 were made, and very justly, of hares and rabbits biting the 

 swedes, and of the injury which ensued during the subsequent 

 frosts. Aa a precaution against that evil he would recom- 

 mend gentlemen present to imitate hia inend Mr. Viall. On 

 the 10th of November he found that gentleman carting hia 

 last load of swedes, and the crop was covered with earth, so 



