Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 22 CHAPTER III. THE DEMAND FOR BABBITS AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD. If it does not pay the farmer to produce rabbits, it is certainly not because the demand is limited or the price unre- munerative. As an article of food, the rabbit is esteemed by all classes, ?is relished by the invalid as much as by persons in robust health, served by the expert cook in a dozen dainty ways, and regarded almost as a luxury by the poor, to whom the rabbit often affords a means of making a savoury dinner, withthe aid of food-scraps, such as could not be easily procured in any other way. In all towns and populous districts the demand is practically unlimited, and has increased since the Ground Game Act came into force. It might be supposed that the market would be glutted when the shooting season is in full swing, and thousands of rabbits are disposed of daily from many estates; but that is not the case, and game-dealers compete keenly with each other for the chance of securing the rabbits at shootings, and will attend and remove them the day they are shot, and pay cash down if required. The dealers find ready buyers at from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. per couple, and a little less for the smallest and worst shot; but a considerably better price can be got for hand-killed rabbits than for shot ones.A rabbit-farmer who raises rabbits exclusively for the market, who catches and kills them in the easy and ready way described in another chapter, and sends by regular instalments to the market, can make a much better bargain than the sportsman who keeps his rabbits on the ground longer for sport. The rabbit- farmer, as prices have been for a long period, may safely reckon on from 1s. to 1s. 3d., on an average, per rabbit of fair size and condition, and in every warren the rabbits are usually pretty uniform in t..