[TO TEE EDITOR Or Tax “SrEcxwron."] SIR,—Poultry-keepers will read with
pleasure the very sympathetic article in your issue of last week on the Fox Question. There are, however, two points on which some misapprehension still exists. The Poultry-Keepers' Protection Society is not, as supposed, an association of small-holders. My society grew out of the co-operation of a few farmers and large poultry-farmers when it was found that the chief poultry clubs, numbering thousands of members, were being managed in the 'interests of the Hunts by officials, many of whom were either fox-hunters themselves or those acting in their interests. Undoubtedly there are a few small-holders concerned in the movement, but the men who suffer most are the large poultry-farmers, who have several thousands of birds scattered over many acres. These find more and more that it is impossible to make poultry pay if the fox has the &St call upon their breeding stock. To be compelled to sink large sums of capital in protective plant and to lose yearly at least twenty per cent. of their earnings in protective labour, in addition to losses in selected stock which no money can replace, is too great a burden to any farmer, large or small. There is only one way out—to control the fox ; and, as I have repeatedly pointed out, this has been done in wired copses, and can be done again without the smallest injury to the sport. We are not Shylocks seeking our pound of flesh; rather we are inclined to say, "Foxes disconcert us ; please you, let us be." The second misconception is that the appointment of a large number of secretaries would reduce the poultry claims.. When this has been done exactly the opposite has happened. The bogus claim then proves to be a myth, and the genuine claims have to be paid, and they send the poultry fund up by leaps, till in some Hunts it stands at over 21,000 a year. Yet this does not represent a third of the value of the birds killed, nor allow anything for the expenses above alluded to. We want security, not merely compensation, and until our poultry are as secure from foxes as our sheep are from dogs, poultry cannot take its place as one of the most paying
branches of farming, as it undoubtedly might but for the fox.
—I am, Sir, &c., A. S. GALBRAITET,
Hon. Sec., Poultry-Keepers' Protection Society.
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