CALIFORNIA PISH AND GAME. 101 



a license, and the fees hrought in a tidy revenue, highly gratifying to 

 the officials." (Coman, 1912, pp. 208, 210, 211, 214, 216.) 



John A. Sntter, a German-Swiss trapper, built an adobe fort three 

 miles above the junction of the American River with the Sacramento, 

 and organized a considera1)le fighting force. He had the governor's 

 commission to defend the frontier against gentiles and horse thieves. 

 His first business venture was in the fur trade, for beaver were still 

 abundant up the Fork. However, he soon had an opportunity to buy 

 at a bargain agricultural implements, seeds, plants, and draft animals 

 from Bodega, and was thus enabled to develop his estate and to give 

 up trapping as a livelihood. 



The Hudson 's Bay Company continued operations in the San Joaquin 

 and Sacramento valleys until 1841 or later. Headcpiarters were at 

 Yerba Buena (San Francisco). Trapping stations were established at 

 French Camp in San Joaquin County and at French Camp in Yolo 

 County. 



"Writing in 1840, Lanman calls attention to the declining fur trade 

 in the following words: "But the fur trade appears fated to decline 

 upon the eastern as well as the western portion of the Rocky Mountains 

 by the diminution of the animals from which it seeks its profits. This 

 diminution has been obviated in some measure by the HucLsan's Bay 

 Company, who have preserved those particular tracts undisturbed. 

 ]^ut where those precautions are not used the American or British 

 trader advances to the territory and strips it of its wealth, so that in 

 a short time there will be but little left upon the soil for commercial 

 enterprise." 



Beaver and otter were reported as becoming scarce on the Sacramento 

 River as early as 1837. 



By 1885 tiie fur trade had so declined that Hittell (1885 b, p. 564) 

 states: "The days of fur hunting, which once Avas a great business in 

 California, are gone, and it can not be long until wild fur-bearing 

 animals will be curiosities in the country." Since that date a steady 

 decrease has l)een noted and his prediction is almost fulfilled. 



Having now shown the fur trade as it existed in the pa.st in California, 

 let us now look for a moment at the fur trade of the world today, that 

 we may better appreciate the money value of fur-bearing mammals. 

 The immensity of the fur trade is best shown by the following quota- 

 ti(;n taken from a report by J. Walter Jones to the Commission of Con- 

 servation of Canada (pp. 73-83) : "The volume of the fur trade is 

 simply amazing to one w'ho has not studied the question. We have 

 figures of Brass of Berlin, who has been in the business for many 

 years and who for thirty-five years has been collecting fur statistics. 

 He estinuites the total production of the world as 360,000,000 marks, or 

 $100,000,000. I have been assured that America alone spends $100,- 

 000,000 a year on manufactured furs at retail prices. The whole world 

 pays, roughly speaking, for manufactured furs at retail prices about 

 $350,000.000 "annually. In Australia the value of pelts is about $6,000,- 

 000, while Africa and South America produce pelts worth about 

 $2,000,000 a year. Warm countries, of course, do not produce furs. 

 For Persian lamb — the product of the karakul sheep — America pays 

 Avholesale approximately $14,000,000. In America the pelts as sold 

 in our houses — not the prices the trader gets, but the prices after tliey. 

 3—15680 



