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AGRICULTURE. (No. 7.) GROUND GAIVIE. THE mere mention of ground game is unhappily more than sufficient to cause landlords and tenants to become alike unreasonable. A farmer, eaten out by rabbits, is not in a fit state of mind to listen patiently to fine distinctions and theories. It may be true, that if owners of land could not get shooting at home, they would go abroad for it, and that other remote evils might have to be faced if those arising from game were got rid of, as completely as most farmers would get rid of them. The farmer's answer to this is, that he will prepare to meat distant evils ifhe can be relieved from the curse of rabbits, which are an ever-present unmi- tigated curse, in his opinion only to be effectually removed by extermination. Apart from what they eat-and the amount is bv no means incon- siderable-the farmer dreads rabbits more than blight, or drought, or flood these he is at liberty to fight against, and is not seldom aided by rising Markets to look with complacency on what at first seemed like an unmixed evil. But rabbits have no redeeming feature. They bring leanness and barrenness to the tenant who is compelled to feed them, and, perfection of wrong, to pay a good round sum per acre for the ruinous privilege. He does not complain about this modern and very effective method of levying black mail upon him, because he does not wish to be put down as a dis- contented grumbling fellow, who is always airing his grievances. Experience has taught him that grumbling yearly tenants either find their ay to smaller and poorer farms, or get removed Off the estate altogether. Tenants who believe it 18 good policy Hot to grumble are not likely to Ille landlords for damages, except in very extreme a cases. This proves nothing as to the amount of injury done to crops every year, and affords no in- dication of the wide and deep feeling ef discon- tent in the minds of farmers against landlords who Preserve this destructive rodent. Rabbits have been denounced with a persistent vehemence that leaves their enemies nothing to desire; but still they multiply until farms change hands quickly, or stand empty because of them; they are carefully preserved by landowners who are little Zftore than wholesale game dealers, and often a good deal less, in that they feed game on land for which high rents are paid. Sport is one thing. and feeding rabbits for sale at the expense of tenants is another and very different thing. The chief of these rabbit merchants are landowners possessed of considerably less than a thousand pounds a year, who try to live as if they had five or six. Rabbits reared on tenants' land bring in these needy squires a good round In which seems to be all profit. That they are tn the long run as unprofitable to the landlord as the tenant is, however, not difficult of proof. Habbit-infested farms deteriorate sieadily in value, and if rents do not actually decline they fail to keep pace with land where this pest is not encouraged. Nor is the decline in rental by any raeaus the only ill effect of vermin-breeding as far as landlords are concerned. The tenants themselves deteriorate. D.oomed to work land Poisoned and burnt by rabbits, farmers lose heart and cease at last to carry on a struggle "hich always ends in vexation and defeat. When Pursued under the most favourable circumstances the profits of farming are but small and very Precarious. The charm of agricultural life is cer- tainly not the prospect of great pecuniary gain,but rather that sense of freedom and pleasure so inti- mately allied with the cultivation of the ground, The allurements to pastoral life are great, but if ftQything will enable a man of capital and common Sense to resist them it is the knowledge that all his labour will be rendered useless by rabbits, Which get rid of all uncertainty respecting profits by making them an impossibility. The best class of farmers will not work at a loss, and as luickly as possible they withdraw the remnant of their capital from the land, and send their sons Into professions and businesses already over- crowded, but where at any rate there is some- thing like a fair field. Grass land is burnt by rabbits to an extent scarcely credible by any one Vfho has not seen the bare brown places where they congregate. Corn crops are devoured and trodden down, but perhaps the greatest devasta- tion is caused among turnips. When rabbits have eaten through the rind of turnips they rot On exposure to frost that has no effect whatever On the untouched roots. These are the imme- diate penalties paid by the farmer, but the land- lord does not escape. Rabbits wherever they are found prevent pheasants from prospering but this can be remedied to some extent by rear- ing rabbits on tenants' land, and pheasants in the landlords' covers. This is a convenient if not "ery equitable arrangement. In winter especially rabbits destroy young trees by barking them. The loss in this respect is great now, and would be much greater if planting were as common as it OUght to be, and will be in a few years. Then there is the deterioration of the land, and the still more important and irremediable deteriora- tion of the tenants. These last-named are slow Processes which do not quickly attract attention by making a great noise, nor yet by the sudden- ness of the changes they accomplish. That the Old class of tenant farmer is dying out is not dis- puted, and with him is dying the old desire to cultivate the land as an honourable business. If Wales were canvassed it would probably be found that the low estimation in which agriculture is held is due mainly to ground game and absence of leases. It would also be discovered that in the Principality farming is despised as an occu- pation to an extent unknown in other parts of the United Kingdom. The holdings in Wales were Waller than elsewhere, and the creation of large farms that caused such an outcry in England has been to some extent necessitated in Wales by the Slackness of demand for farms. It must not be tlnderstood that when a farm is to let there are no applicants for it. There are applicants, but they are not experienced farmers possessed of ^ipital, nor the sons of farmers anxious to Produce new and improved methods of cultiva- tion. The applicants, as a rule, are poor men anxious if possible to get a little out of the land Without putting anything into it. They are not xious for leases, and not even averse to rabbits! This deterioration in tenant farmers is mainly due to rabbits and yearly tenure. Except under very Special circumstances men possessed of skill and Capital, if they cannot obtain leases and are not flowed to keep down rabbits, remove to districts ^here a little more light has penetrated. They are too wise to wait for the approach of sure and cer- tain ruin. Just below them there is a class of Iklen unable to move-poverty, or language, or Sentiment binds them to the place. o These struggle on as well at; they can and take care that !lone of their children follow their footsteps. Lower down than these again are the men who live from hand to mouth, a hopeless, thriftless life. They 8illk with their surroundings and at last are worse off than ordinary labourers on well-regulated es- tates. There are, it is scarcely necessary to. say, landlords in Wales who, fully ahve to the ruin brought upon the owners and cUltivators of land by rabbits, have handed them QVer without reserve to. tenants. The invariable tesult of this policy is a better supply of winged. §ajHe, a more plentiful supply of hares, and quite 11." many rabbits as are necessary for sport. When ground game is handed over to the tenants they are at once converted into gamekeepers, and, as a rule, a tenant likes to show his landlord a good day's sport when he comes over his farm with his gun. The gain in winged game would far more than make up for any sacrifice in rabbits, especially if the saving in gamekeepers was reckoned. Now every farmer is interested in repressing game as much he can: then he would be interested within reasonable limits in preserving it. If landlords gave tenants the ground-game, leases would be more freely granted, and land, instead of de- creasing in value, would become worth more every year. It is sometimes said that as soon as a Welsh farmer obtains a twenty-one years' lease, he sits down contentedly, under the im- pression that he need make no further effort of any kind. That this is scarcely a true representation of the Welsh farmer may be fairly presumed from his reluctanc3 to accept a long lease, which he very well knows means hard work, increased responsibility, and systematic invest- ment of labour and capital. Rabbits, as a rule, mean yearly tenures, poor tenants, impoverished landlords, and decaying properties. The land- owner who sets up in the business of rabbii merchant from choice may live to see his descendants following the same occupation from necessity. Agriculture- in the Principality suffers 0 enough from other drawbacks without being cursed by a plague of rabbits.

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