60 A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY 



only effectual remedy is to have the legal 

 power to destroy the rabbits in their warren, 

 which often lies just outside the reach of his 

 hand. There are farmers — not good farmers, 

 for the true craftsmen of the fields have too 

 much pride in their work to take farms overrun 

 with rabbits — who are not averse to rabbits 

 running over their ground, and spoiling their 

 meagre crops. I heard a farmer who rented 

 under a duke, boasting, even in war-time, that 

 he could pay his rent out of the rabbits he 

 snared and shot. Why should he trouble to 

 put his hand to the plough ? 



Perhaps the most damaging indictment 

 against sporting landowners came from the 

 Scottish farmers, than whom there is no finer 

 class of farmers in the world. Before the War 

 we had watched with apprehension the growth 

 of the deer forests spreading over the farm 

 areas with its sinister swelling as of a dark 

 cloud. Before the Selborne Committee, Sir 

 Robert Wright reported : " In 1883 there were 

 1,710,000 acres of land devoted exclusively to 

 deer forests and sport apart from grazing in the 

 crofting counties of Scotland. In 191 2 this 

 area had increased to 2,932,000 acres. Out- 

 side the crofting counties there are 668,000 

 acres, making a total in 191 2 of 3,600,000 

 acres." The witness gave an instance of a 

 small settlement of 1500 acres in the centre 

 of the deer forest area, where some of the lower 



