The Fur Animals of Louisiana 293 



tion of beavers and muskrats, it is believed that these water 

 fur-bearing animals cannot be raised profitably in pens, 

 since all the feed would then have to be supplied to them, 

 thus adding materially to the cost of production. If given 

 adequate protection, both as to the maintenance of their 

 natural habitat and the proper regulation by law of the 

 open and close seasons, muskrats, by their prolificacy, will 

 maintain their numbers." 



To those seriously considering going into the muskrat 

 ranching, the figures furnished by Gibbs in his Maryland 

 experiments, as to his area and annual production, are 

 interesting and worth analyzing. In one year he produced 

 4,205, which indicates 5.25 muskrats to an acre and he had 

 good land and poor in his holdings. 



Muskrat marshes in Dorchester, which is the largest 

 producer of this animal of all the Maryland counties, range 

 in value, according to the state's game warden, from $25 

 to $100 an acre, whereas a score of years ago they would 

 not bring over 50 cents to $5 an acre. These Maryland 

 marshes given over to muskrat culture range in size from 

 200 to 6,000 acres each. Trappers, who usually trap the 

 animal on shares of 50 per cent, are allotted from 100 to 

 200 acres each, according to the known fertility of the ter- 

 ritory. One owner of a 6,000-acre tract pays the trapper 

 50 cents for each pelt taken and 10 cents for each carcass 

 prepared for the market, and many of his trappers earn 

 under this plan from $1,000 to $1,500 each winter of about 

 75 trapping days. 



Maryland production of muskrats reported by Mr. Le- 

 Compte is about 445,000 from five counties on that state's 

 east shore. Louisiana's production is more than 10 times 

 this amount. The Maryland official also records one tract 

 of land which produced 5,000 muskrats off 1,300 acres, 

 which was not quite 4 to an acre, and calls attention to the 

 fact that taxes are not as high on marsh lands as on arable 

 lands, and cites the instance of one Maryland marsh which 

 in 1916 sold for $5,000, brought $19,800 seven years later, 

 the increase in realty values being brought about by the 

 heretofore insignificant muskrats inhabiting the marsh. 



