Page 396 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

374 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
Breeding Fur-Bearing Animals
When hundreds of persons wrote to me asking for hterature on the breeding of fur-bearing animals for profit, for ten years I was compelled to tell them that there was no such literature. During the past three years a few offerings have been made, and I lose not a moment in listing them here.
''Life Histories of Northern /inmials, by Ernest T. Seton (Charles Scribner's Sons, 2 volumes, $18), contains carefully written and valuable chapters on fox farming, skunk farming, marten farming, and mink farming, and other valuable life histories of the fur-bearing animals of North America.
Rod and Gun in Canada, a magazine for sportsmen published by W. J. Taylor, Woodstock, Ontario, contained in 1912 a series of articles on ''The Culture of Black and Silver Foxes," by R. B. and L. V. Croft. Country Life in America has published a number of illustrated articles on fox and skunk farming.
With its usual enterprise and forethought, the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture has published a valuable pamphlet of 22 pages on "Silver Fox Farming," by Wilfred H. Osgood, copies of which can be procured by addressing the Secretary of Agriculture. In consulting that contribution, however, it must be borne in mind that just now, in fox farming, history is being made more rapidly than here- tofore.
I do not mean to say that the above are the only sources of informa- tion on fur-farming for profit, but they are the ones that have most impressedme. Thefilesofallthejournalsandmagazinesforsportsmen contain numerous articles on this subject, and they should be carefully consulted.
Black-Fox Farming.—The ridiculous prices now being paid in Lon- ''
don for the skins of black or ' silver ' foxes has created in this country a small furore over the breeding of that color-phase of the red fox. The prices that actually have been obtained, both for skins and for live animals for breeding purposes, have a strong tendency to make people crazy. Fancy paying $12,000 in real money for one pair of live black foxes! Thathasbeendone,onPrinceEdwardIsland,and$10,000per pair is now regarded as a bargain-counter figure.
On Prince Edward Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, black-fox breeding has been going on for ten years, and is now on a successful basis. One man has made a fortune in the business, and it is rumored that a stock company is considering the purchase of his ten-acre fox ranch at a fabulous figure. The enormous prices obtainable for live black foxes, male or female, make diamonds and rubies seem cheap and common- place; and it is no wonder that enterprising men are tempted to enter that industry.
The price of a black fox is one of the wonders of a recklessly ex- travagantandwhimsicalage. Allthefur-wearingworldknowsverywell