Making Money Out of Rabbits 



How a young woman taught herself 

 ning and engaged in a business that 



A YOUNG woman in Los Angeles, 

 Mrs. Carl Sherman, has 

 taught herself fur-raising 

 and tanning and maintains 

 a "rabbitry" of three or 

 four hundred choice 

 specimens. She is the 

 founder and instructor 

 of the "Southern 

 California Coney Fur 

 Club," and has a 

 large established 

 trade both in skins 

 and garments of fur. 



Instructions in rabbit- 

 raising and tanning 

 were obtained from the 

 Government. To learn 

 garment-making she 

 sent to Chicago for the 

 cheapest set of furs of 

 fashionable cut that 

 could be had. These 

 she carefully ripped up, studying the 

 seaming and finish, and afterwards using 

 the pieces for patterns. Now she makes 

 fur sets — muff and cape — that sell for 

 forty or more dollars. 



In her own back-yard, on a fifty-foot 

 lot, are pens of up-to-date construction 

 full of aristocrats in the coney-world — 



After being tanned the skins are 

 softened by scraping and rubbing 



Only aristocrats of the rabbit world occupy apart- 

 ments in Mrs. Carl Sherman's strictly modem hutch 



fur-raising and tan- 

 anyone can learn 



Himalayas, English 

 Snow Shoes, Imperial 

 Blues. Flemish Blacks, 

 French Silver, little Jap- 

 anese and other varieties. 

 And in her cottage are 

 chests full of preserved 

 skins that sell for eight 

 dollars each unmade, 

 while her transactions 

 ill made skins amount 

 to several hundred 

 dollars a month. 

 Yet a child could 

 learn the trade, she 

 declares. The formula 

 is simply five gallons 

 of water, four pounds 

 of common salt, and 

 two ounces of sulphuric 

 acid, made into a solu- 

 tion, in which the skins 

 are soaked from six to 

 twenty days according to their weight; 

 they are then dried in the shade, pulled 

 and stretched by hand, and rubbed over 

 the edge of a hardwood board until pli- 

 able. Finally they arc immersed in gaso- 

 line, rubbed over while wet with corn- 

 starch or fuller's earth, dried in the sun, 

 and brushed. 



Having mastered the business 

 in its details, Mrs. Sherman last 

 October formed a club of her 

 neighbors, which in December 

 had thirty-two members, all rais- 

 ing their own rabbits, tanning 

 their own skins and making fash- 

 ionable fur pieces for the trade. 

 The club prepares an exhibit 

 of fur garments for the annual 

 show of the California Rabbit As- 

 sociation. This exhibit includes 

 a wide variety of fur pieces, such 

 as hats, muffs, capes, scarfs, slip- 

 pers and bags — all of fashionable 

 cut and beautiful shades and 

 markings. The club never lacks 

 a market for its wares; as a mat- 

 ter of fact, the members find the 

 demand exceeding the supply. 



8.S.5 



