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 £173, 4233, 4314, 4423, £573, and £764 
