52 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



and practised ; and when breeding stock are valued at from #800 

 a pair to #30,000, it is a pretty safe certainty, the progeny on a fur 

 farm will receive tenderer care than many a human family. 



In fact, the failures of the first two or three attempts at fox 

 farming arose from sheer neglect. On the principle that man must 

 not interfere with nature, the foxes were captured and turned loose 

 on some desert island, where they perished from starvation or 

 disease. The first spectacular successes in fur farming arose from 

 handling the fur bearers just as you would handle priceless thorough- 

 bred cattle, or blue-ribbon-winning race horses — by studying their 

 habits and needs, and stinting them nothing. 



While there are at time of writing 36 fox farms in the United 

 States and 29 fur-bearing farms of other kinds, and while there are 

 in Canada at least 1000 fur farms of all kinds — it was on Prince 

 Edward Island that the first great spectacular success of fur farming 

 was made. One fox farm had failed partly on Anticosti and another 

 failed altogether off Labrador, chiefly because the animals had 

 simply been caught and turned loose. Whereas in Prince Edward 

 Island, fox farming followed the same lines you would follow with 

 cattle or sheep. 



Naturally, it pays better to farm a fur with a pelt worth from 

 #500 to #1000 rather than an animal with a pelt worth #20 to #30; 

 so Prince Edward Island was lucky in getting started right. 



The question comes up — Is the silver fox a species, or a freak ? 

 Is he the result of being caught just at the time when his fur is 

 turning from summer coat to winter coat, from light to dark, or 

 at the age when youth is beginning to mingle white hairs with 

 black ? Or is he some mix-up of nature's pigments, which we don't 

 understand ? 



Only ten years ago, I propounded that question to one of the 

 greatest naturalists of Canada, a man who had been a curator of 

 wild life for twenty years ; and he did not know. He could only 

 give an opinion ; and he gave it tentatively. A few years later on 

 a long canoe trip with a guide, who had trapped in the North for 



