VoL. LX. No. 2695. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 21, 1901. 
$1 PER YEAR 
HABITS OF THE WILD RABBIT. 
ITS INJURIES TO FRUIT TREES. 
What To Do With Them. 
Prof. H. Garman, of the Kentucky Experiment Sta¬ 
tion (Lexington), gives in Builetin 63 some interest¬ 
ing facts about rabbits. These little animals prove a 
serious pest in some parts of the country, as they 
gnaw the bark of young fruit trees, 
and even eat crops. The pictures 
shown in Figs. 284, 285 and 286 are 
taken from Prof. Garman’s bulletin, 
as are also the following notes: 
In the more closely settled por¬ 
tions of Kentucky hunters and dogs 
keep the numbers so reduced that 
complaints of injury by barking 
trees are rare, but in sections where 
there is still a great deal of forest 
with undergrowth, hunting is not 
sufficient to keep them m subjec¬ 
tion, and whenever snows are deep 
and other food becomes scarce, the 
trees suffer. I have examined nur¬ 
series in which 25 per cent of whole 
blocks of apple trees was so badly 
gnawed as to be worthless. When 
trees are from one-half to one inch 
in diameter of trunk the bark alone 
is commonly eaten, but they may oe 
completely girdled for a distance of 
eight or 10 inches up the trunk. 
Very young trees (one-year-olds) 
are sometimes cut off by the sharp 
incisors as cleanly as if severed 
with a knife. Hunters cannot be 
given the freedom of a nursery, be¬ 
cause of the damage done to trees by charges of shot. 
Dogs alone are not a complete protection. Other 
means are a necessity at times. 
RABBIT-PROOF FENCES.—When the nursery is 
small it is possible to enclose it with a close slat 
fence that will “turn” rabbits. Two types of fence 
suitable for the purpose are to be seen in the State. 
The most common is made of rough slats four to six 
feet long and about three inches in width. The slats 
are securely fastened together from one to two inches 
apart with No. 11 wire, stout posts being set at in¬ 
tervals of 10 to 16 feet to insure sta¬ 
bility and keep the panels upright. 
Since the slats can be adjusted to any 
unevenness of the ground, it is possible 
to exclude anything that a fence can 
reasonably be expected to turn. The 
second type is made of shorter slats, 
three or four feet long, and these may 
be supplemented above by one or more 
wires stretched from post to post. J. Q. 
A. Rahm has built such a fence about 
his nursery. He uses slats three feet 
long, none less than one-half inch thick 
and sets his posts in Spring; waiting 
until hot weather in August and Sep¬ 
tember before putting up the slats, in 
order to have the wire fully expanded 
at the start. The wires are simply 
crossed between the slats, and are kept 
taut while building by a harrow loaded 
with about 1,000 pounds of stone and 
placed from 100 to 400 yards ahead of the workmen. 
Near the harrow the wires are secured to a single¬ 
tree made of a piece of stout timber, a log chain be¬ 
ing passed around this and secured to the weighted 
harrow so that it cannot slip. 
TRAPS.—Rabbits are very easily caught, notwith¬ 
standing their well-known cunning. One of the sim¬ 
plest and best traps used for the purpose is made 
of rough fence boards six inches wide and about two 
feet long. These pieces are nailed together so as to 
make an oblong box, one end of which is closed with 
a short piece of board, while the other is provided 
with a door consisting of another piece of board 
which slides down from above in grooves cut in the 
projecting sides, or between slats nailed on to the 
end, as shown in Fig. 286. The bottom piece may 
also be allowed to project so as to make the door 
THE COMMON WILD RABBIT. Fig. 284. 
more secure when closed. A small hole is bored 
through the top at about the middle of the box, and 
midway between this and the door a stick is secured 
in an upright position. Across the top of this latter 
a second stick is secured, by a nail, in a notch made 
in the upright one so that it will see-saw up and 
down. A third stick of small size is notched near 
one end and secured at the opposite end by means 
of a piece of twine, to the end of the larger movable 
piece. This movable piece is now connected by twine 
at its forward end to the top of the door, when the 
trap is ready to set. The door is elevated, the little 
stick passed through the hole in the top and secured 
by the notch to the front edge of the hole. When the 
rabbit enters it pushes the projecting end of the stick 
before it, setting it free, allowing the suspended door 
to descend and thus cutting off its own escape. P. E. 
Downer, of Todd County, keeps numbers of these 
traps set among his young trees at all times during 
the Winter, catching scores of rabbits, and complete¬ 
ly preventing injury from them. The traps may be 
baited with a piece of apple or cabbage placed in the 
the end farthest from the door, but rabbits some¬ 
times go into them when no bait is used, either out 
of curiosity, or in search of shelter. They are very 
likely to take refuge in the traps when closely pur¬ 
sued by dogs. The traps can be taken indoors in 
Summer, and with this care will last for a long time. 
They should be made of old weath¬ 
er-beaten boards, as these are less 
likely than new lumber to arouse 
suspicion. I have seen traps of this 
pattern made by a 10-year-old boy 
that worked well, to the great de¬ 
delight of their owner. 
A second trap sometimes used in 
the State is made of the same ma¬ 
terial as that described, but the 
door is hinged at the top and 
swings inward, so that when open 
it is against the top of the trap. It 
is secured in this position by a wire 
which passes through a couple of 
eyelets and is finally connected with 
a treadle consisting of a loose piece 
of board resting on the floor, by its 
front edge, while farther in it is 
raised by means of the wire con¬ 
nected with the open door. When 
any weight presses up on the 
treadle, the wire is drawn from be¬ 
neath the edge of the door and lets 
it drop. Being somewhat longer 
than the opening it strikes the bot¬ 
tom of the trap in an oblique posi¬ 
tion, and any attempt of a rabbit 
to escape only wedges it the more 
securely. The hinges required may be made of bits 
of old leather. The wire commonly employed is that 
designed for fences. The common form of snare used 
in this State consists of a ring of small pegs driven 
into the ground so as to project about three inches, 
the pegs set one inch apart and the ring made about 
five inches in diameter. Then in place of one of the 
pegs a small figure-four is made, with the horizontal 
piece bearing an apple projecting to the middle of the 
ring of pegs. A sapling is bent down, a piece of 
chalk-line attached and the noose at its end is passed 
about the ring of pegs and connected 
with the figure-four, so that when any¬ 
thing disturbs the apple the noose is 
released and the sapling flies up. 
RUBBING TREES WITH BLOOD.— 
Even in the nursery it is possible to go 
over blocks of trees during the Winter 
and rub the trunks for 1% foot above 
the ground with blood from a slaugh¬ 
tered hog or steer, and those who have 
tried it claim that it is a complete pro¬ 
tection against rabbit depredations. 
'Sometimes a piece of liver is used, the 
rubbing being done in either case with 
the hands, these sometimes protected 
by an old mitten or glove. The practice 
does not commend itself to me as the 
best means of attaining the desired end, 
so far as the nursery alone is to be con¬ 
sidered. In the young orchard the rub¬ 
bing can be done with less waste of 
labor. Young orchard trees can be protected, how¬ 
ever, by simply wrapping the trunk with closely- 
placed cornstalks, coarse straw or stout paper. Such 
wrappings are frequently employed, and I am as¬ 
sured by those who have tried them that trees so de¬ 
fended are never disturbed by rabbits, though it must 
be confessed there is no evident reason why they 
should pay heed to so flimsy a covering when their 
stout teeth could easily remove it. 
A RABBIr-PROOF FENCE ABOUT YOUNG NURSERY TREES. Fig. 285. 
