26 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 
The following is a summary of the best conditions for fox-ranch- 
ing operations: 
1. Foxes should be ranched in woodland areas in a climate 
cold enough to produce a heavy fur and overhair. 
2. The value of the pelt depends on good health as well as 
on climatic conditions. Wholesome varied food is a necessary con- 
dition for health and can be best secured in a thickly-settled rural 
district. 
3. Foundation stock should be the best obtainable. The best 
foxes are those in captivity in ranches, and they have the addi- 
tional advantage of being half-domesticated. 
There are some advantages to be gained by conducting extensive 
ranching operations in one locality, particularly because breeding 
animals may be easily exchanged and the dangers of close, or in-breed- 
ing, prevented. Neighbours can also impart to one another more freely 
what their experience has taught them. These advantages, however, 
may be offset by the difficulties of securing food for the foxes. In every 
rural township there is enough cheap meat and offal to supply flesh 
diet to scores of foxes,but not to hundreds. Several hundred foxes, 
therefore, in one neighbourhood, would necessitate the purchase of costly 
meat. An ordinary farm has enough waste meat scrap, dripping, bread, 
biscuits and game to support several animals. 
A wooded area, not subject to flooding, and where the 
eo snow does not pile up in deep drifts in winter, is best 
adapted for the site of the ranch. The subsoil should be 
a hardpan to prevent deep burrowing and escape under the fences. 
Areas which produce a growth of birch, spruce, fir and cedar, with 
heath plants and blueberries in the open areas, have usually a good 
turfy cover and a hardpan subsoil near the surface. In such a situa- 
tion it is easy to erect pens as the fences have only to be extended down 
to hardpan to prevent the foxes from burrowing under and escaping. 
A sandy soil and subsoil, on the other hand, entails an additional ex- 
pense, as they can burrow to depths of six feet or more. A family 
of foxes working one behind the other will relay earth out of a 
sandy hole in a veritable shower. In ordinary loam, the fence is not 
considered safe unless it extends down a depth of over three feet and 
is founded on a subsoil of considerable hardness. 
Proximity to the dwelling of the keeper is also an important con- 
sideration. This is usually accomplished by building the ranch in a 
woodland lot a few hundred yards distant from the house, or, if the 
ranch is a considerable distance from the owner’s dwelling, by building 
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