8 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



are they in their habits, there is not a hint of the supply falling 

 off. 



Beaver has been brought back through a few years of closed 

 seasons. Indeed, in Algonquin Park, Canada, where it was espe- 

 cially protected, it became so plentiful, adjacent sections asked leave 

 to destroy beaver dams to prevent flooding of lands. 



The Alaska seal had dwindled to a few thousands a year on the 

 market, when the stoppage of Pelagic Sealing gave the mothers 

 and pups a chance to live; and now the Alaska seal has so mul- 

 tiplied in less than ten years that by 1922, it is expected there will 

 regularly be not less than 100,000 young Alaska male seals yearly 

 on the fur market. 



' Only ten years ago, I asked one of the greatest fur merchants 

 in the world — a man who deals from Persia and Siberia to Alaska 

 and Athabasca — what he thought of silver fox farming. "We 

 tried," he said, "and it didn't succeed." Yet to-day there are 

 36 fox farms in the United States, 29 other fur farms in the United 

 States, and in Canada, not less than 100 fox farms, besides 1000 

 fur farms of mink, karakul sheep, skunks, raccoons, beaver. In 

 many cases, the fur farm is simply an adjunct to other farming; 

 but the fox farms are exclusively devoted to fox. 



Closed seasons, fur farms and game preserves have restored 

 beaver, Alaska seal, fox, buffalo. High markets may stimulate 

 the pursuit of fur-bearing animals ; but they also stimulate the 

 preservation. The little furs, of which the greatest number are 

 taken, are also the most prolific of animals ; and the danger of 

 muskrat and rabbits is of their multiplying to the point of self- 

 extermination through pest and starvation. 



Without attempting to enumerate all the great fur companies 

 now doing an enormous business in America, it may be stated 

 that the raw furs converge to some half dozen places : in Canada 

 to Montreal, Winnipeg and Edmonton; in the United States to 

 St. Paul, St. Louis, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. Only 

 St. Louis, Montreal and New York are in the true sense fur markets 



