RABBITS AND WOODS. 173 
RABBITS AND WOODS. 
This sad subject has been kept for the last, as the only disagree- 
able one in connection with the wild garden. All I have to say of 
it is, there should be no rabbits in the wild garden ; but the following 
suggestions may prove useful. 
The subject should be presented in a practical light to landowners 
and preservers of game, and if it can be shown that the preservation, 
or rather toleration, of rabbits on an estate is a dead loss both to the 
proprietor and his tenants, probably more active measures would be 
taken for their extermination. It is incalculable the injury they do to 
young trees alone ; indeed, where they prevail there is no chance of 
getting up cover except at an extravagant cost. Hares are less 
destructive, if they damage trees at all ; and it is said by experienced 
gamekeepers that they never thrive so well where rabbits abound. 
And as regards pheasants, they drive them away by eating down the 
evergreen cover so necessary to their existence in the way of shelter in 
winter. Pheasants will not remain in a wood where there is not 
shelter of this kind; and nothing are they more partial to than the 
Holly, whieh ought to abound in every wood, but which the rabbits 
destroy first. Here are two sorts of game—hares and pheasants—which 
many can never have enough of, and the existence of which is directly 
interfered with by the rabbits; they should be encouraged at the 
expense of the latter—not to speak of the expense incurred year after 
year making up losses in plantation, and the expense of wire-netting 
and labour, etc., in protecting the trees. The extermination of rabbits 
in this country is not such a difficult matter as might be imagined. 
When it was determined here a few years since to reduce their numbers 
to a minimum on the farm lands and woods, it did not require more 
than a couple of years to do so by shooting and ferreting during the 
season ; and they are now principally confined to one part of the 
estate—an extensive tract of waste land not of much use for any other 
purpose. I feel pretty certain that a few active poachers would under- 
take to clear an estate of its rabbits in a marvellously short time, and 
would be glad to pay a handsome consideration for the privilege of 
doing so. In whatever degree rabbits contribute to our food supply— 
and it is not much—they certainly destroy a great quantity of our corn 
crops, and are no profit to gentlemen or game preservers, and there is 
therefore no excuse for their existence. 
Hungry rabbits, like hungry dogs or starving men, will eat almost 
