The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-02-21 00:00:00

Corruspoioni re.

To tie Editor.
Sin—lt via with much regret and trine terroriee
that I read in )Our last impression the attaek mole
at the meeting of the " r F irmers' Club"
on the landlords, and on the preservation of game.
At the first glance, it struck me that a contro-
versy of the kind, provoked just at this tinge, uhun
tenant fuel Lenillord should pull tireetlier to obtain
the great boon of the remove' of the hlalt•tax, must
have been inculcated by some foe to the farmer, who
eirilied to sow dissension where unity alone should
prevail.
Pawing over the florid elnquence with which a
very simple tale has been encumbered, and fully
agreeing in some things very well pet by Mr. Wood,
abstaining, at the nine time, as much as posail
from return ke calculated to consume time and /race,
leithent ornvineing three " Who will be of the saute
opinion still." I proceed at ono. to rusineed
A landlord has a pirfeet right to do as he pleases
with his aerce; an, a tenant has no need to rent
uml'r him unless lie pleesee. They are free parties
to the bargain, and each have their eyes open.
The owner of an estate has as much right to do as
he pleases with hie acres as a cottager has ti do what
be likes with his garden The Course adopted by
the cottager is the game as that pursued by the
larger pr iprietor —he will be master of Inv own.
The tenant, at and amend his large farm, keeps and
tireaerves more fowls, turkeys, ducky, arid geese, in
eighth of thieves and depredators, then the landlord
maintains in pheasants and partridges on live times
that extent of his estate. If the sight of quantity
is a step to temptation to steal, then the large
poultry yard comes under tho satne category as the
large preserves, and Landlord and tenant are alike to
blame.
For myself, I would never grant a lease, and then
there could be no mistake in regard to promises as to
the amount of game to be kept. I would never
grant a lease, on the very sound principle that if I
had a bad tenant I could get rid ef hum, and if my
tenant thought me a disagreeable landlord, he could,
by as summary a process, discharge one.
Many years and long practice have given me to
know, that on estates, where, by way of experi-
ments, two or three leases of farms have been
granted, in those two or three instances alone, on
that estate, has there been any will between land-
lord and tenant.
I can speak particularly to our Gloucestershire
farms. The tenants for centuries have been tenants
at will, and yet on these toms there are still the old
families and the old names, and landlord and tenant
continue to go on comfortably together.
During the late Lord Fitzhardinge's time, on the
side of the tenants, I made • strong remonstrance to
their landlord, modestly put before me as the subject
was by the tenants, and then more sedulously advo-
cated by me. It anew thus :
The rabbits were the perquisites of the keepers,
and, consequently, they kept up too large a head.
Though ordered not to do so, they still disobeyed
that order, under the plea of chedience to another
command, and that was, to keep just enough rabbits
to feed the foxes, and to save the castle game, and
the poultry on the farms.
The tenants in this came had a cause of complaint,
for by inspection I saw that there were too many
rabbits, and at the same time several of the farmers
frankly assured me that "If their landlord got out
of the rabbits any personal pleasure fir himself, they
would not even have made to me the shadow of &
complaint; but as matters stood, the keepers alone
profited by the rabbits, and ate a double wage out
of the tenant's crops."
Everything that I could do I did to induce Lord
Fitxhardiege to take the rabbits as he dad his hares,
all to himself, and to pay the keepers their
doe in money ; hut, weiltlied to a very frail
custom on the estate, he did not comply with
any suggestion. Keepers on no account should be
permitted to have the rabbits for themselves, and
there is no excuse fer the error, when their muter is
rich enough to pay them well in money.
And now as to that most silly suggestion that has
been urged at the fernier.' table, that the farmer and
his men, with nets and traps, should be permitted
to kill the rabbits on his land :—A farmer and his
men have it not in their power to do this when the
tillage adjoins the wood. In spite of all they could
do the wood of the landlord, it being left to the
farmer to right himself, could over-run the harvest
to destruction.
A farmer's men have, or ought to have, something
more to do than to be snaring and ferreting rabbits,
and digging down the banks, often in useless en-
deavours. Besides this, in every case that I have
seen, the farmer, finding that his men are much more
Inclined to idle amusement than they are to dry, hard
work, sees that either the farm or the rabbits must
be neglected ; and seeing this, he introduces a third
party on the scene, never contemplated by his land-
lord, and employs the most idle thieves to come on
his laud, taking what they can get in payment for
their trouble. Those bad characters then steal from
both landlord and tenants all they can in game in
rabbits, or anything else they may lay their hands
on, and in the end, if they contrive to escape being
caught red-handed in the fact, they are no worse
than they were before; for if discharged from the
land they had no character to lime, and they simply
go back to their macerates, the better or the worse
as to drink and gambling, with the money they had
got.
There is • publication watched by Mr. Bright as
well as myself, the Blue Books on the Game Laws in
Committee in the House of Commons, which con-
tains an answer to the very wide and erroneous
assertion, that "Game preserving fosters crime."
The statistics of the county police, as documentary
evidence, therein prove that during the year when
Incendiary fires were rife, there were fewer fires en
estates and in counties where there were large pre-
serves of game, than on estates and comities where
the game was moderately preserved or altogether
neglected, and less of sheep stealing, fowl stealing,
and agrarian theft of every kind in and around the
great preserves of game. The sheep stealing and the
fires on the unpreserved estates were in an advance.
at • very large percentage, over a similar area of land
where there were many gamekeepers, proving that
the keepers were a protection to every kind of rural
property.
I will now give a return furnished to the Com-
mittee by Lord Salisbury, air to the destruction of
vermin on his estate, vermin as destructive to the
farm as to the game preserve, and in the instance of
the mole, destructive only to farming interests.
Those vermin were killed by gamekeepers, and per-
dens appointed by his lordship especially for that
purpose. I Gage the year 1845, and give the list of
the game, as well as that of the rata and moles, that
were killed on his lordship's strictly preserved
lands :
Pheasants ...... 507 Rabbits 10,025
Partridges 2,391 Rats
Hares
By this I leave the reader to judge what good may
be done to the farmer in game preserving, every-
thing being strictly kept in the landlord's hand.
In page 193, Lord Salisbury was asked, "Do you
find that the preservation of game has any ill effect
upon the morals of the surrounding poor I"
His lordship relied—"l have a very strong
opinion that it is gladly the reverse. I have pro-
perty in different counties, and I find that where
game is preserved, the population are much tie
quietest and more orderly, and there is much leis
seriou oriole."
ia in my power very well- to confirm this
opinion' from different places which I have rented,
In all of which the game had been entirely neglected.
Each plates was filled with poachers and theivee, and
In nay present place, in the first year I came to it; I
had four pheasants to begin with--there were DO
more upon the ground. In less than a year my men
*aught eleven thievers of game, or poachers. Against
the two last, who went to prison for two months'
hard labour, there were eight previous convictions,
as when out on the neglected lands they, in the case
of those two men, had strayed to where there were
keepers on duty, and so they got into trouble.
And now as to the most unfair abuse lavished
upon -

simply I