14 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 
system of double mating. Large quantities of salmon, lobsters and game 
were caught for food for the foxes, while horse meat was occasionally 
brought from Quebec city. He augmented his stock with native Quebec 
wild foxes and conducted feeding experiments with red foxes. Careful 
selection has improved his strain until they grade dark silver throughout. 
Authentic reports state that Mr. Menier, who owns Anticosti 
island, has attempted to breed foxes there, and has set at liberty silver 
and patched foxes to grade up the colour of the wild fox. 
Mr. Burrowman is a fur-buyer who, at an early date 
An Ontario recognized the possibilities of domesticating fur-bearers. 
Experimenter 5 we : 
He kept foxes in captivity twenty-two years; but did 
not successfully rear young to maturity until about ten years ago, 
because, prior to that time, he kept more than one pair in a single pen. 
He may be called the father of the Ontario fox-ranching business. The 
only assistance he obtained was from the late Dr. Robertson of Fox- 
croft, Me. 
The placing of the fox-raising industry on a commercial 
ee \iton _ P28I8 is due to the efforts of Charles Dalton, of Tignish, 
P.E.I., and his former partner, Robert T. Oulton, 
formerly of Alberton, P.E.I, but now of Little Shemogue, N.B. 
Dalton began experimenting about 1887, with red foxes, which he 
kept in a shed at Nail Pond. Later, he bought two pairs of silver foxes 
from neighbouring districts and from Anticosti island and continued 
his experiments with indifferent success for about ten years. During 
that time, Oulton was also experimenting with foxes, having bought 
a silver fox from Mr. Gibbs of Lot 5, and a pair of silvers from a Mr. 
Pope of Anticosti island. All Anticosti foxes were subsequently slaugh- 
tered because they did not come up to the requisite standard of 
quality. 
One of their chief concerns was keeping off prying neighbours 
from their ranch premises. While Beetz had little difficulty with 
neighbours, the obtaining of a sufficient food supply was a matter that 
gave no little trouble. Dalton and Oulton were more fortunate in their 
food supply as the thickly-settled farming country all about them sup- 
plied horse flesh and other cheap meat in abundance. ‘Tallow, corn 
meal, fish, oat-meal, flour and butcher’s waste were available in plenty 
and a very small outlay in cash procured a large supply. 
Oulton pursued his work on Savage island, of which he was the 
sole inhabitant. He managed to impress the public with the necessity 
of keeping away from his ranch, and his pens, constructed within an 
outside enclosure a quarter acre in area, were the models for the 
present system of ranching. Dalton and Oulton joined interests in 
1895 or thereabouts, and, together, worked out successfully the present 
