es and a buck will give you a rabbit to eat for
_every three days in the year_, which is a much larger quantity of food
than any man will get by spending half his time in the pursuit of _wild_
animals, to say nothing of the toil, the tearing of clothes, and the
danger of pursuing the latter.

185. Every-body knows how to knock up a rabbit hutch. The does should not
be allowed to have more than _seven litters_ in a year. Six young ones to
a doe is all that ought to be kept; and then they will be fine. _Abundant
food_ is the main thing; and what is there that a rabbit will _not eat_? I
know of nothing _green_ that they will not eat; and if hard pushed, they
will eat bark, and even wood. The best thing to feed the young ones on
when taken from the mother, is the _carrot_, wild or garden. Parsnips,
Swedish turnips, roots of dandelion; for too much green or _watery_ stuff
is not good for _weaning_ rabbits. They should remain as long as possible
with the mother. They should have oats once a-day; and, after a time, they
may eat any-thing with safety. But if you give them too much _green_ at
first when they are weaned, they _rot_ as sheep do. A _variety_ of food is
a great thing; and, surely, the fields and gardens and hedges furnish this
variety! All sorts of grasses, strawberry-leaves, ivy, dandelions, the
_hog-weed_ or _wild parsnip_, in root, stem, and leaves. I have fed
working horses, six or eight in number, upon this plant for weeks
together. It is a tall bold plant that grows in prodigious quantities in
the hedges and coppices in some parts of England. It is the _perennial
parsnip_. It has flower and seed precisely like those of the parsnip; and
hogs, cows, and horses, are equally fond of it. Many a half-starved pig
have I seen within a few yards of cart-loads of this pig-meat! This arises
from want of the early habit of attention to such matters. I, who used to
get hog-weed for pigs and for rabbits when a little chap, have never
forgotten that the wild parsnip is good food for pigs and rabbits.

186. When the doe has young ones, feed her most abundantly with all sorts
of greens and herbage and with carrots and the other things mentioned
before, besides giving her a few oats once a-day. That is the way to have
fine healthy young ones, which, if they come from the mother in good case,
will very seldom die. But do not think, that because she is a small
animal, a little feeding is sufficient! Rabbits eat a great deal more t