1922.] 



Council of Agriculture. 



937 



COUNCIL OF AGRICULTURE FOR 

 ENGLAND. 



The Seventh Meeting of the Council of Agriculture for England 

 was held on 6th December last, at 2.30 p.m., at the Middlesex 

 Guildhall, Westminster, S.W.I, Sir Douglas Newton, K.B.E., 

 being unanimously elected to the Chair in the absence of Lord 

 Selborne abroad. The Minister of Agriculture was present 

 throughout the proceedings. 



The question of the draft regulations for the Voluntary 

 Eegistration of Bulls was considered. The scheme embodied in 

 the regulations had been drawn up by the Live Stock Advisory 

 Committee of the Ministry and arose out of a reference which 

 the Council had made to thct Committee of a resolution which 

 had been proposed at its Meeting of 4th March last by Sir 

 Merrik Burrell. Sir Merrik Burrell suggested an amendment 

 of Clause 1, which was not accepted by the Council, and after 

 further discussion, in which the Minister took part, it was 

 agreed that the draft regulations should be referred back to the 

 Agricultural Advisory Committee. 



Lt.-Col. H. E. Disbrowe-W^ise moved : — 



That the Council recommend the Ministry to promote legislation on 

 the lines of Section 10 of the Corn Production Act, 1917, recently 

 repealed, with the object of enabling the Agricultural Committees to deal 

 with the rabbit pest in cases where damage to crops is sustained by the 

 attacks of vermin from adjoining occupations," 



The mover said that it had been argued that the tenant farmer 

 had the remedy in his own hands, as he could kill or trap or 

 net rabbits. He could not, however, enter anyone's land in 

 order to destroy them. Colonel Disbrowe-W'ise thought that 

 difficulty usually arose when the owner of the rabbits was a 

 shooting-tenant and not the owner of the land. Cases of this 

 sort could generally be managed with a little diplomacy, bat 

 where that was not possible, the tenant had no remedy at law. 

 He asked, therefore, that Section 10 of the Corn Production Act. 

 1917, should be re-enacted. 



Lord Bledisloe, in seconding the resolution, said that 

 strenuous efforts had been made to get the Section re-enacted 

 in the last Agriculture Act, but without success. The 

 gi'ievance may not be a very real one at the present, but he 

 was afraid it was likely to develop. There was the danger from 

 shooting-tenants, who were often townspeople having no interest 



