The Rats in the Stacks
No doubt one reason why farmers fail to co-operate properly with gamekeepers in keeping rats down is because they do not see the damage which rats inflict upon them. A farmer is deeply troubled if he sees a blade of corn or grass nibbled by a rabbit; he will make frantic efforts to secure that rabbit—which has a market value. But a rat does little visible damage, and when dead is worth nothing. Another cause of apathy is that the farmer knows how useless it is to deal with the rats on his own premises when the supply is promptly renewed from his neighbours'. In a single corn-stack he entertains cheerfully, perhaps, 500 rats. Assuming that each rat eats three pints of corn a week, the 500 rats in three months eat fifty pounds' worth of corn, to say nothing of the grain and straw they damage. In a day, ten rats will consume enough food to keep a man. If anything further were needed to impress a rat-cherishing farmer, we might point to the statement that a female rat may be responsible, theoretically, for between twenty and thirty thousand descendants in the course of twelve months. But it is left to the gamekeeper to be the rat-catcher of the countryside. The farmer goes cheerfully to bed, unaware that rats are enjoying themselves in his stacks to the tune of two or three pounds a day. Many keepers destroy two or three thousand rats in a year.
