18G6.] AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. Q81 
BABBITS .—From a Study by Rousseau.—(Coptright secured by M. Knoedler.) 
Kabbit Breeding. 
It was one of the joys of boyhood to keep 
rabbits, and though we never made much use 
of them as food at that time upon the home ta¬ 
ble, our friends were glad to accept the present 
of a fat pair now and then; and some little 
profit, which, to boys amoimted to a good deal 
however, came from the sale to companions of 
the surplus of our flock. It was not for profit, 
nor to give them away, that rabbits were kept, 
but they were enjoyed as pets and companions. 
Almost every one had a name, and the mys¬ 
teries of pairing, nest making, suckling, etc., 
were studied with an interest which impressed 
facts upon our minds that have been useful 
ever since—not that we boys pursued deep in¬ 
vestigations in the theory and practice of breed¬ 
ing, but we certainly got some very good 
lessons. Others, however, have used rabbits for 
scientific investigations into principles which 
they have applied to their flocks and herds 
with great advantage; among them 
we may mention the late Col. Jac¬ 
ques, of Worcester County, Mass., 
and the lamented Col. F. W. Rotch, 
of Otsego County, in our own State. 
Rabbits do not require expen¬ 
sive houses or yards, but may be 
bred in health and to excellent ad¬ 
vantage, in the simplest kinds of 
boxes and hutches. It is best usu¬ 
ally to have a pen, with a roof over 
the whole. A part of an open shed 
is a favorable plaee, and this should be laid 
with boards or paved with bricks or stones, 
to prevent their burrowing out and doing mis¬ 
chief in the garden. Ambitious to imitate nature 
so far as possible in accommodating our pets, we 
made a contrivance which is described and 
figured because we had so good success with it. 
First a pit fully 3 feet deep was dug, and 
a box (A, fig. 2) set in it, open at the top and at 
one end. The box was about 3 feet long, 18 
inches wide, and of the same hight. A board 
passage (B,) hf^ving a bottom and sides only, 
was then made from the open end of the box 
up to the top of the ground. The whole was 
then loosely filled with soft sandy soil, with a 
few stones as heavy as the rabbits could move. 
Then we nailed barrel staves {D, D,) over 
the box and the passage, and scattering some 
shavings on the staves, filled up the pit with 
earth—not, however, before we had driven bar¬ 
rel staves (G*, G,) in a row all around the box and 
passage-way, coming up to the surface and 
