i8 7 



WILD RABBIT FARMING 



THE growth of " Wild England " has been going on 

 by leaps and bounds during the years in which the price 

 of wheat and oats have maintained their steady decline. 

 It would be a most interesting experiment for the 

 County Councils of the home districts to issue a map, 

 on which the land withdrawn, not only from the plough, 

 but from any form of cultivation, and running wild, 

 was coloured in a bold tint and plain to the eye. Most 

 of this will turn into rough pasture of a sort ; but the 

 question of how to gather some revenue from it 

 meantime is a pressing one. Much of this land, 

 especially that on the Berkshire downs, is thin light 

 soil, well suited for the rearing of game ; and as 

 sporting rights let well, and the ground which rears 

 partridges and rabbits is also suitable for running rough 

 stock and sheep upon in winter, the new wilderness 

 is likely to be fairly well peopled with its natural 

 inhabitants. In some places wild rabbit farming has 

 been taken up seriously. A partner in one of the 

 large London provision stores told the writer that he 

 had turned part of a farm in Essex which he had 



