306 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



of coppice. If calculation of this sort be made, 

 and a landowner still prefers swarms of rabbits 

 to well-stocked woodlands, well and good; the 

 landowner who can afford to do this nowadays will 

 have many admirers, while a still larger number 

 may feel inclined to envy him. With such a pre- 

 ference for rabbit-shooting, it would be mere 

 waste of money to attempt economic methods of 

 Forestry, though otherwise the prices now already 

 obtainable for well-grown timber, and soon likely 

 to be much enhanced, also offer attractions not 

 altogether unworthy of some consideration. 



It is rather a difficult matter to furnish any- 

 thing like a satisfactory estimate of the loss in 

 yield and income actually caused by rabbits. It 

 is easier to show how they affect the profitable 

 working in the one single item of forming the 

 plantations, leaving supervision, maintenance, and 

 repairs of damage entirely out of consideration. 

 Wire-fenced plantations cost up to ^8 an acre, and 

 often more, while they could be formed for less 

 than half that sum if rabbits were kept down' 

 within reasonable limits. This difference of ^4 

 an acre mounts up, at 3 per cent, interest, to sums 

 of ^i?i, ^"23 i, ^3i, ^42 J, ,571, and 



