Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1882-12-07
The Rabbit Plague In Australia.
A Big Chance for Paying Inven-
ton.

The ancient saying that the race Is
not always to the swift nor the battle
TO the strong is receiving a new illus
tration in Australia. OF all animals
the timid rabbit would seem to be the
last that would ever wage war OF ex-
termination against man; and yet that
is precisely what it is doing in Austria
liza. One colony has already lost two
million of sheep by them; the plague
is spreading northward at the rate OF
100 miles or more year; and the Fed
eral Australian says that the rabbit in
sasion threatens the great industry Of
the colony with ruin. "The impossi :
bility of feeding large flocks of sheep
and innumerable rabbits at the same
time on the same breadth of pasturage.
is just as great as would be that Of
growing wheat and hay on the same
soil. There is only one alternative in
this case; either the flock owners must
expel the rabbits, or the rabbits will
expel the flock owners" The convic-
tion is that the evil has attained "a
magnitude which puts it beyond the
hope of control by local efforts, or even
by any one colony. The movement for
the determination of the rabbits must
be simultaneous and universal TO be of
any avail.
The proposition now is for general
act of the colonial assemblies levyinga
tax on all lands, whether stocked or
not, TO meet the cost of general war
upon the invaders by the colonial gov
ernments. 1t is proposed that each
colony shall appoint staff Of rabbit
inspectors to enforce representative
legislation, each colony undertaking to
keep its own borders free from the
| plague.
1.-THE flock owners over the entire
area of the continent" says the aus
tralion, "must make common cause in
the endeavor to exterminate the plague,
and to that end must aid their respect
i've governments by every means in
their power. War to the knife must
be declared by every individual inter-
ested in station property in Australia
against pestilence which positively
threatens nothing less than the gradual
destruction Of the wealtbiest interest
that has yet grown into hourishlng ex-
istence In this part Of the world"
Having declared general war upon
the rabbits. the great question would
appear to be the devising of modes of
attack that will be at once efficient ard
economical. One fock-owner is men,
toned as having trapped 5000 of the
little pests in space of four months;
others have tried general poisoning,
and yet no perceptible check has been
put upon the rapid multiplication OF
the prolific and all-devouring vermin.
Shooting the rabbits is out of the ques-
ton. there are 80 many of them. their
wariness and burrowing habits adding
to the hopelessness of meeting the in
vasion by individual destruction. They
mnst Oe killed by the million, and at
cost that will not exceed the value of
the land reclaimed from their ravages
Probably the most welcome guest in
Australia do-day would be the inven-
tor of solution for this pressing and
all important problem. The money
values at stake are enormous; and the
successful inventor of cure for the
evil, which so gravely threatens the
prosperity and future progress of the
Australian colonies, would doubtless
make as good thing for himself as
his invention would be for the sheep
raisers.-ScientUfc American.