RABBITS FOR RUSSIA

Evening Star, Issue 21077, 14 April 1932, Page 12

RABBITS FOR RUSSIA

NEW SOVIET “ NURSERY " Making rabbits grow fur to order is the latest idea in Soviet Russia. The Commissariat of Agriculture of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics lias published an announcement that the Soviet Government has begun organising “ tho greatest nursery of fur-bear-ing creatures in Europe,” and that furs are to become a more important article in Soviet export trade. Rabbits and kangaroos are to receive special attention. The prospects of the fur trade have improved in consequence of the experiments of Professor Ilyin, who is reported to have discovered a way to breed rabbits of any colour desired and bearing fur of a very high quality. Professor Ilyin first made his announcement on September 30, 1931. Ho explained that ho worked with tho help of heavy mineral salts in changing temperatures, and that, given a white or black rabbit, be could make it quickly shed its fur and grow a beautiful now natural coat of a different colour, tho shade of which he regulated by varying his combinations of temperatures and salts. He added that other animals also responded to Ids treatment, and be was already engaged at the Moscow Institute in experiments on bigger fur-bear-ing animals, as bis system opened up “ brilliant prospects for increasing the export value of our pelts.” The new nursery is called a State farm, and occupies some 2,000 acres near Maikop, between the Caucasus and the Crimea. Its stock is not to be confined to rabbits, but experiments are to be made also with breeding kangaroos and other exotic “ fur-bearing beasts,’’ which it is hoped may find congenial homes and establish their race in Soviet Russia. For a beginning “ 100 kangaroo couples ” .have been- secured and placed among the .indigenous fur-bear-ing fauna, on the Maikop State Farm.