A MARKET AT HOME FOR COLONIAL RABBITS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2203, 21 May 1896, Page 7

A MARKET AT HOME FOR COLONIAL RABBITS.

(From the p*par read by Mr C. R. Valentine at the Foreign and Colonial Section, Society of Arts, March 24.) lfor 10 years or more England has paid to the foreigner an annual bill, on ihe average, of more than £300,000 a year for rabbits for food. Indte', to B lgium alone, for her big, tame, fat rabbits, we piid £309,000 in 1889 and £357,000 in 1890 List year Belgium received £234,289 of a total rfibbife bill of £315,585. The balance of over £80,000 was chiedy contributed to by Prance, £37,111 ; Hollaud. £21,813 ; Victoria. £15,737 ; New Zealand, £4755 ; New Sjuth Wales, £1755. This is a distinctly new trade wilh Australia, and began virtually in 1894. The value of the export for the three colonies mentioned was: New Zealand, £985; Victoria, £886; and New South Wales, £182 We sent Australasia the rabbit as a curse, and fihe is returning it as a blessing in the shape of food. To-day an English rabbitthough no rarity — is a luxury even in the country places, and too dear a morsel for the average man with a family when selling at over I*, as it always does. Indeed, Is 4d a head or pehaps 2a 61 a couple is the average pries in a country town. In the Australasian colonies the rabbit has become a plague, a3 all oi us know ; he has threatened to bring famine upon a colony, and swept Socks and man before him. All plans and premiums for his extirpation have failed. Now, however, that the coloaie3 have Found him, as they will do, a profitable export, there is hope that his very value and utility j will destroy him as the same qualities hare destroyed nobler beasts. The importance of a I

rabbit trade to the colonies, then, is two-fold. It is ilsilf a fcource of profit, and at the sumo time ridding the country of a noxious pest. In this litter respect alone the importance of developing a profitable trade in dead rabbits cannot be over-estimated. It must be borne in mind that the Colonial Governments have hitherto paid large sums for his extirpation ; it will be a gratifying result if Brer Rabbit finally pays for his own execution and extinction. The colonial trade should easily capture the market hera, and before dealing with a few of the facts of the colonial rabbit supply I may point out tbat the colonial rabbit sent is a wild rabbit like our o^vn English rabb : t, and not a fleshy "stall-fed" Belgian hare or rabbit. In this he i's superior as a dish ; by bis numbers and cheapness in the colony he can ba sold at less money here than any rival to pay the producer. Actual txperiment3 ia the market with recent imports show that a shilling rabbit brings a good return, for they can be supplied wholesale at under 8J at this side. If people here, however, would take to the Australian skinned frozen rabbt they "could undoubtedly be placed here at a cheaper rate. Just now there is also a dearth in the tinned rabbit trade, aud these are becoming very popular inde:d msa S*turday night living with the masses. Rabbits can be very profitably tinned in Australia, and the skins and fur dealt with there. The trade in rabbits for food, frozen, tinned, and .all ways, will develop rapidly. They can be packed perhaps more economically a.i regards space than poultry in the cool chambers, and just now, owing to the shortness of freights of butter, some 200 tons of frczen rabbits are on their way to England from Australia. The majjrity of the rabbits eorae frozen with the fur on, and when thawed out thoy cannot be distinguished from the English rabbit. There need be no faar of their wholesomeness, for the colonial governments are as anxious that the trade should grow a.9 the English purchaser is to secure good cheap food. All inferior rabbits and even undersizad ones are thrown away. When they are what is called dear in Victoria, they make 5s a d zan, but 3d to 4d would be the average price, and perhaps less. Wholesale here they have averaged closß upon la, and at that price will pay the colonial exporters well. They are a whole8 ime, good, cheap food, carefully chosen, and equal to the besu English rabbit. The colonies, therefore, when the trade is known, should be able to defy all competition. In 1893-91 Viotorian Government paid £20,687 for the destruction of rabbits on Crown lands, and siuce 1880 some £300,000 has been spent for tbJ3 purpose, and in 1891 it was estimated that 37£ million acres were itifr shod. Some ten million rabbitskinß, worth £55,000, were exported from Victoria in 1893, and in the year 1893 94- 53,000 couples of rabbits were sold in Melbourne. Rabbits spread from Victoria to New South Wales, some baring been liberated in the former colony in the "sixties." By 1881 they had become a nuisance in New S uith Wales, and an act; of Parliameat was firsb pa«sed to provide for their destruction in 1883 By 1890 theic destruction had cost the co'onj £1,000,000. To-day the settlers' aud farmer*' holdings are protected by some 16,000 miles of rabbit-proof fencing. In New Zealand the rabbit has been equally a pest, and is energetically dealt with. His natural enemies, the stoat and weasel, have baeu let loose upon him, the Maoris and others are paid so much for his skin, and other means have been largely practised. The peat appears to be held in check. The esf eutials of the trade in rabbite are :— 1. They must be plump ; qu'ckly paunched after being killed, uaskinnel, and frozen hard. 2. They should be snared or trapp-.d, and their nec.k3 br> ken. - 3 Packed in crates holding threa dozen, clean a-d uniform. (Hares must not be paunched, but otherwise the s*me treatment does.) 4. Rabbits should ba sent in large quantities from September to about the third week in April. It only remains foe me to say that if the colonies can make any profit on every rabbit caught it will be so much more gain, for they .will b3 paid then for what they have bsen piyiag others to do — killing rabbics.