its export trade unless stern measures are 

 taken to protect them. 



Conservation is the byword to-day. Steps 

 for the preservation and multiplication of valu- 

 able game birds and fur bearers are ceaselessly 

 advocated and encouraged, and one of the 

 greatest aids to this end has been the extensive 

 establishment over the Dominion of domestic 

 fur ranches. These have come now to include 

 not only foxes, but muskrats, beaver, skunk, 

 marten, and fisher. In the extreme north, future 

 supplies of meat of an almost illimitable extent 

 are being nursed and built up in maintaining the 

 herds of cariboo, muskox, and reindeer both at 

 the hands of the government and private cor- 

 porations. 



There is, at the same time, one source of 

 meat and fur production which to the present 

 time has been largely overlooked in Canada and 

 which offers possibilities of exploitation on a 

 commercial scale. This is the cultivation of 

 rabbits and hares. In the rearing of these 

 animals there is a double source of revenue, the 

 meat and the fur. At all large centres through- 

 out the Dominion the meat finds a ready sale at 

 profitable figures, whilst at the Montreal fur 

 sale last year, thousands of rabbit skins, which 

 were shipped all the way from Australia, were 

 placed upon the market and realized satisfactory 

 prices, indicating the opportunity offered to 

 local production. 



Canadian Animals Unsurpassed 



The raising of rabbits and Belgian hares has 

 never gained a really secure footing in Canada 

 probably on account of a lack of appreciation of 

 the profit to be derived from the pursuit, but 

 also, undoubtedly, because the larger phases of 

 agriculture have made a greater appeal, to the 

 exclusion of the smaller branches offering smaller 

 but surer compensation. It is an old and profit- 

 able industry in England, and before the war 

 Belgium was earning from ten to twelve million 

 dollars a year from this source. Australia 

 exports thousands of the little animals to 

 England each year where fur and meat are alike 

 utilized and consumed. Authorities state that 

 Belgian hares raised in Canada have no 

 superiors in the world, and that the only 

 genuine Rufus Red Belgians are, at the present 

 time, raised in England and on the American 

 continent. 



There is an opening for the industry in 

 Canada both as a side line or as a whole time 

 pursuit, and an engagement in this necessitates 

 neither arduous labor nor an extensive devotion 

 of time whilst ensuring a healthy revenue. 

 Suburban dwellers can follow it on a small scale 

 with profit, whilst those devoting their entire 

 time to it can secure from five to ten acres 

 adjacent to any of the larger centres which are 

 the natural markets for their product. There 

 is not the long waiting for development conse- 



quent upon the initiation of other branches of 

 farming. 



An Economic Enterprise 



One of the greatest inducements the industry 

 holds out to those of small capital is the economic 

 cost of its commencement and operation, the 

 smallest of outlays only being entailed. The 

 expenditure on raising and feeding is low, there 

 being no expensive housing or apparatus, and 

 the food being of the simplest. In the case of 

 animals being raised on a small scale, it is possible 

 to support them almost entirely on the refuse of 

 the kitchen; for the small ranch the cost is not 

 much more as the little creatures thrive on vege- 

 table cuttings, carrots, beets and cabbages. The 

 ordinary summer feed is carrots and clover with 

 a little grain. 



There is a ready market in all parts of the 

 Dominion for both the meat and the skins. 

 Rabbit meat is highly palatable and nutritious, 

 containing eighty-three per cent nitrogen or 

 more than either pork, mutton, beef or chicken, 

 and is coming into ever greater favor on the 

 continent. The fur markets of the world dispose 

 of millions of rabbit skins yearly to make their 

 appearance later as electric seal or under some 

 other name. Last year, one Montreal company 

 imported more than 600,000 rabbit skins from 

 Europe. 



The first Canadian exhibition devoted exclu- 

 sively to rabbits was held in Montreal in March 

 this year, and the splendid specimens entered, 

 numbering 250, and the visitors which exceeded 

 2,500, augured a great interest in the industry. 

 There was an excellent exhibit of raw and dressed 

 skins by local manufacturers, the most noticeable- 

 being a collection of "Sealins" (made from rab- 

 bit skins) and samples of skins dyed and tanned. 



Across Canada Vancouver 



Some men who pride themselves upon their 

 instinct in forecasting national development have 

 prophesied that in course of time the largest and 

 most influential city of Canada as well as the 

 most important seaport on the whole Pacific 

 coast will be Vancouver. These predictions they 

 base on the nature of the Dominion's phenomenal 

 growth with its Pacific city as the gateway to all 

 the Orient and the Australasian continent, in 

 which direction, as well as by way of the Panama 

 canal, more tra4e is tending every year. Van- 

 couver is the natural outlet for export for a 

 large part of the Dominion as well as for her own 

 fair province, which contains a great and varied 

 aggregation of wealth which is being exploited 

 and exported to a greater extent each year. 



Emphatically a city of the present, or perhaps 

 in greater truth of the future, Vancouver has its 

 link with romantic history in bearing the name 

 of the naval commander who discovered its site 

 in 1792, and whose two small vessels, in which 



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