134 City HoTnes on Country Lanes 



example, France sold, through its municipal market 

 alone, some 80,000,000 rabbits, and millions more were 

 distributed through other channels. Before the War, 

 London was using 500,000 a week mostly imported 

 from Belgium, with a net profit of about a million dol- 

 lars a month to the Belgian producers. 



Formerly, the wild rabbit had been regarded as the 

 worst of pests in Australia, and was exterminated by 

 every possible means. But, during the War, Australia 

 was commanded to conserve her rabbit supply. The 

 animals were killed on an enormous scale, frozen and 

 shipped to the armies in France. 



In the United States, until quite recently, rabbits 

 have been treated as pets ; they had no economic stand- 

 ing whatever. Now they are rapidly coming into their 

 own as a standard meat in the market, while rabbitcraft 

 is developing along scientific lines, and more and more 

 offering a delightful occupation for men and women. 

 Their place in the economy of the garden home is un- 

 questionable. They add both quantity and variety to 

 the luxurious table, while enhancing the fascination of 

 the daily tasks and swelling the joy of the family. 



The new vogue of rabbitcraft should not be con- 

 founded with the wild boom in Belgian hares which swept 

 over the country a quarter of a century ago. That was 

 purely speculative in its conception, and ridiculous or 

 tragic in its consequences, according to the tempera- 

 ment and means of the persons involved in the enter- 

 prise. Some of them paid as much as a thousand dol- 

 lars for a pedigreed buck. Nearly all imbibed the full 

 spirit of Colonel Sellers, and came to believe "There's 

 millions in it !" Everybody raised rabbits, but scarcely 



