R3/4795

Letter Reads- Had spoken to His Grace about poaching etc, but was also replying about this to Adams. Snaring of hares is the great evil in preserves. They are destructive to farmers eating crops and damaging turnips. If preservations of hares is a cause of crime, the preserver must protect his own property, a case in point showing the difficulties was the Flitwick keeper who found a hare in a snare at 8.pm, and waited in a ditch until 6.30am, and so caught the labourer who will probably go to jail. But he was neglecting the rest of his manor that night, "all his pheasants might have been swept away". So unless a much large force is kept snaring with flourish suggests that outside the Park hares should be treated as vermin and destroyed. Pheasants are comparativily harmless to the farmer. Night poaching of them is scarcely known to this County, and if there were no hares on the farms the keeper could look after them effectively. The only loss would be hare shooting for the Duke and his friends, and he must judge if it is worth it. Lord Charles Russell told the Duke sheep stealing has decreased with increase for game but Bennett doubts if that is true reason. Decrease in sheep stealing more likely to be due to vigilance of police and anyway abandonment of one crime for another poor reason for preserving hares. The Cople keeper has two men killing rabbits and rats, ferreting all the hedgerows, otherwise the rats would take all the partridge eggs.

7 Dec 1843

From: 1843 To: 1843

item

Haedy, C,
Adams,
Russell, Lord Charles,
Bennett

poaching, hares, farmer, turnips, gaol, labourer, vermin, farms, sheep, police, rabbits, rats, letters, WOBURN, Woburn Abbey, FLITWICK, COPLE