This poem by G. B. Starky, a North Canterbury farmer, is a wry take on the debate that raged in parts of the South Island over the introduction of weasels, ferrets and stoats to control rabbits. The line ‘The remedy is worse than the disease’ was a common complaint voiced in newspapers at the time.
The Weasel
The Squatter and the Cockatoo were walking hand in
hand,
And the Squatter saw the rabbits were encroaching on his
land;
He said, ‘My gentle Cockatoo, let’s band together,
pray,
And make things hot for this great lot of conies here at
play.’
The Cocky, unsuspecting elf, agreed to wire in,
And went for bunny with a dog, with deadly gun and
gin;
He slew the rabbits near and far, he slew them low and
high,
Until at last there was not one to make a rabbit pie,
The Squatter went destroying in a different way to
Cocky,
He said, ‘My land is rough in parts and very steep and
rocky,
I’ll breed ferrets there at vast expense, buy cats at
one-and-six,
For I think their ‘natural enemies’ should know the
rabbit tricks.’
He turned out pussies by the score, and ferrets,
weasels, stoats;
He kept a hundred rabbiters, and phosphorised his
oats!
He put up net of half-inch mesh and sunk it in the
ground;
And the rabbit said, ‘If I mayn’t dig, why I must o’er it
bound.’
The Weasel came along with him, he left those
mountains rocky,
And came and took up his abode with our old friend the
Cocky;
He killed the goodwife’s capons rare, her turkeys, ducks,
and geese,
‘The remedy,’ the Cocky cried, ‘is worse than the
disease.’
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