102 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 
As treatment varies so much, it is impossible to list the operations a 
given skin goes through. Marten, for instance, has a tender skin and 
has to be given hand treatment. Mink and fox are treated in a Cana- 
dian fur-dressing establishment about as follows: 
Fox MINK 
Pounded Pounded 
Wet with wet sawdust Soaked to soften head 
Fleshed Fleshed 
Salt water put on skin Flesh pickled 
Dried Dried 
Broke in foot-tub Drummed with sawdust 
Buttered or greased Greased and pounded 
Tubbed Stretched 
Cleaned with sawdust in drum Drummed (sawdust) 
Dried Stretched 
Polished in drum with sawdust Drummed (sawdust) 
Stretched and beaten 
Dyed 
“At the fur dressers’ the skins are first dampened 
pee on the flesh side with salt water and left all night 
to soften. The following morning they are placed 
in a tramping machine, where they are tramped for eight or ten 
hours. The machine works about 2,000 pelts at a time. 
“The pelts are next covered with a mixture of sawdust and 
salt water, and remain so overnight. The following morning they 
are cut open down the front and are then fleshed, one man being 
able to flesh 200 to 300 in a day. The skins are next stretched and 
hung up to dry. When thoroughly dry, they are again moistened 
with salt water on the leathe: side, remaining so overnight. They 
are next brushed on the flesh side with animal fat—butter or fish 
oil and tallow—and laid in pais, with fur side out. After remain- 
ing overnight they are placed in tramping machines and worked 
for six or eight hours, or until thoroughly soft and pliable. They 
are then stretched in every direction. 
“The next process is cleaning. The skins, to the number of 
300 or 400, are placed with sawdust in revolving drums exposed 
to steam heat. They are revolved for about three hours, when the 
sawdust will have completely absorbed the grease. The skins are 
next incased in a beating drum, where they are revolved for two or 
three hours. On removal, they are beaten with rattans, and the 
*An abridgment from Chas. H. Stevenson’s report in that of the United States 
Commission on Fish and Fisheries for 1902. 
