Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 275, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1917 — Raising of Rabbits Urged As a Means of Overcoming Shortage in Food Supply [ARTICLE]

Raising of Rabbits Urged As a Means of Overcoming Shortage in Food Supply

New York city’s women’s committee on national defense has entered upon a campaign to encourage the raising of rabbits. x The committee wants a little rabbit in every home.

“It is a humble animal,” says the advocates of the idea, “and can be kept in a small wooden box with a screen door for the admission of air. It thrives on food we throw away and on grasses from the roadside.” All of this, of course, is true, and if, as some one has suggested, every one of the 3,000,000 war gardeners of the past season went seriously about the business of rabbit raising there would shortly be a plentiful supply of meat, cheaply produced and, on the whole, very palatable, says the Indianapolis News. “The rabbit,” says the committee, “is as tender and nourishing as chicken. It makes a ravishing stew;.it is delicious in potpie, and stuffed rabbit, as the French prepare it, is a tiling to dream of. Further, the fur of the rabbit can be used for coats and hats, and thus our two great needs —something to eat and something to wear—will be satisfied if American families will begin to keep the rabbit in their homes.” The prospect Is alluring; the idea is pleasing. And possibly there are few practical reasons why the suggestion should not be carried into effect.