The first Belgian hare course of instruction. Twenty lessons. Complete directions for buying, sheltering, feeding, breeding ... developing a business, etc. ... with a true history of the Belgian hare ...

Front matter

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Class Book..

COPyRrCHT DEPOSIT.

Preface

THE ISSUANCE of this Course of Instruction is the result of a conclusion arrived at by careful thought, brought about by a combination of circumstances and conditions existing in America and Europe, such conditions receiving my personal inspection and most thorough investigation both here and abroad.

The prime object of the work is the furtherance of one of the most practical and essential industries that has ever come to the notice of mankind, in that it is the source of a most delicious meat supply, a thing entirely indispensable to the human race.

It is truthfully said that of the three "necessaries of life" (food, clothing and shelter), the first is the prime one, and it is a well known fact that meat forms a major portion of the same. Since this be true, how necessary it be that the variety of which we partake be the most healthful and palatable, thus becoming transformed into pure blood, healthful muscle and active brain fibre to the end that we be capable of enjoying a happy existence, making the most out of every opportunity presented and leading a most prosperous and useful life, the memories and accomplishments of which will be perpetuated by future generations.

It is needless for me here to enumerate the various kinds of meat foods partaken of by unsuspecting human "victims," and their respective peculiar transmission of scrofula, tubei'- culosis and cancer, their inducement of rheumatism, dropsy,..

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dyspepsia and all such things, as are well known to the medical and surgical professions to be the result, direct or indirect, of trying to transform with our assimilative organs diseased and unhealthful meat food into healthy human mechanism.

How necessary it then becomes that our meat food be supplied by an animal that is dainty in appetite, cleanly in habit and free from disease. From this point of consideration springs the secret to the great pupularity of the Belgian hare as a meat producer for the great hospitals, hotels and clubs, where he is sufficiently known, throughout the length and breadth of the land.

The economic and practical features of the animal as a meat producer were the reason of my early becoming interested in its personal use and its introduction to the public.

However, the fancy has long since been considered my lifework and since I have brought the Belgian hare so prominently before the public within the past four years, enthusiasm is unbounded in its behalf, and one can see innumerable unreliable, misleading and impractical articles and fables written on the subject, and numerous publications delving deep in extravagant statements regarding the industry, prices of individual specimens and the Belgian's possibilities as a fur producer. Such overdrawn statements are unnecessary, as the animal is amply able to stand on its honest merits, and a reaction follows as a reflection from overzealous. excitable persons who have dropped into the business intent on making a fortune in a year or two without work.

This misstatement of facts concerning the little animal prompts me to sound a word of warning to the beginner in purchasing his stock of the dealer who spends more money in extravagant advertisements than he does in the purchase of the stock he sends you, and to "beware" of the advertisement that declares its proprietor to be the happy possessor of thousands of acres of hares in some unknown location,

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and who has a string of "branch offices" established all over the universe.

I mean nothing personal in the above remarks, and merely vi^ish to advise beginners to buy of reliable dealers or directly of breeders, whose reputation has been established, that your personal satisfaction direct, will result indirectly to the betterment and advancement of the industry. - My line of introduction of the hare was originally through organized effort, later through that and illustrated publication, and lastly, when it required still more attention, to lecture and institute work, as well.

Now it has reached that point where my personal attention is wanted in perhaps a dozen places at one and the same time, and that, coupled with a wrong impression regarding my Institute work, has determined me to issue this Course of Instruction, knowing that it will permeate local fields and touch places abroad that my limited time would not permit of me giving personal attention.

It perhaps will be timely to state here that my work in the fancy is, has been and will be opposed by three classes of people, which I group under the following heads: (1) Ignorance. It is noticeable that some people oppose my Institute work who know absolutely nothing about it personally. That such is unjust I will prove by referring ones interested to my graduates throughout America, now numbering about 100, and the first complaint is yet to be heard from even one of them. (2) Jealousy. It is a lamentable fact that the life of some creatures in the form of human beings is devoted to trying to reach the "acme" of their calling by throwing every body else below their level, instead of by endeavoring to build themselves to the top. I don't advise such course and there are but few people who admire it. (3) Unscrupulous dealing. It is plainly evident and most natural that wherever the educational line of work on the Belgian hare goes it is opposed by dealers who have sold, or wish to sell, inferior stock

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at advanced prices. Nothing is more natural. T find that in hundreds of instances the practice of changing animals on the score card or selling elaborate, inflated score cards with a mongrel rabbit thrown in has been practiced to an alarming degree and that a course of Institute work in such a locality is always welcomed by the conscientious breeders and is opposed by unreliable parties who know that the stock misrepresented by them will meet its "Waterloo" and that their little game is all over in that locality. In proof of this statement I advise people to watch the result of the work where I have gone and where I will go in the future. Take notice of the class of dealers who leave said localities and seek a new field, note that they next touch at a point where such educational work has not yet been done, invariably, and also note the shifting of worthless stock and the demand for the highclas type of animal that always follows in the locality of such instructions.

I consider that the "cold water pouring" by the above three separate and distinct classes of people coupled with my inability to be "everywhere at the same time" is reason enough for me to get out a publication, at this date, which will introduce the industry in the same lines and set countless thousands on the right track, who would find it impossible to take a personal course of instruction at present.

The truth is, that if poultry raising is practical and profitable, Belgian hare raising is vastly more so, and I make this statement, not from the standpoint of one who speaks of what he knows not. for I have bred and exhibited 13 different breeds and varieties of fancy poultry, and am today a fancier of Barred Plymouth Rock poultry, Poland China swine, and Short-horn cattle, but Belgian hares are my specialty, as they produce the most delicious, most healthful and most economic meat food in existence. Fraternally,

P. B. CRABTREE.

Denver, April, 1901.

Contents

PAGE.

LESSON ONE. INTRODUCTION . ; 1

LESSON TWO. HISTORY 5