Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1898 — Hats in the Azores. [ARTICLE]

Hats in the Azores.

A resident of Fayal, says the Revue Scientifique, complains of the abundance of rats and rabbits. The rats multiply fast, and make all sorts of depredations, not only within houses, but in the fields and gardens. They attack a great number of edible fruits, such as bananas, oranges and grapes; they infest granaries, houses and fields. Among other depredations, the rabbits have attacked a field of tea plants, and of four thousand vigorous shoots that were set out by the proprietor, they have destroyed 3,988 completely, leaving him twelve by way of consolation. The farmers are beginning to ask what they shall do. Shall they import the mongoose? The example of Jamaica makes them hesitate. And still another example in the Azores is of a kind to render them cautious in matters of acclimation. The pigs there have been allowed to run wild and live in a state' of freedom; the result is that imported partridges have almost entirely disappeared, the young having been eaten by the swine. It is thus difficult to tell what to do, and meanwhile rats and rabbits are abandoning themselves to all sorts of excesses.