DYEING AND DRESSING OF FURS 89 



can be put on by machine, or brushed in by hand. The machine 

 can do 2000 skins, or the work of five men ; and the use of the 

 machine has been so furiously opposed by the unions that in at 

 least one huge factory it has had to be given up. A machine will 

 do 10,000 skins a day ; but hand work only — two coats put in by 

 brush as a woman dyes her hair — gives the final lustre. The 

 pelts are then put on racks to dry. 



Hand processes are still used to flesh, pickle, grease, soften, 

 cleanse, shear (with aid of machine), stretch and get the stiff hairs 

 out. The biggest houses handle easily by machinery 4,000,000 

 muskrats a year and 6,000,000 rabbits. 



Unprime rabbits and unprime muskrats are not worth the 

 expense of work and are used for felting and hatting. 



Mole dyeing must all be done by hand. The skin is too fragile 

 for quick machine work. 



Broadtails can be done by machine, but the final lustre of lamb 

 skin must be hand finished. In one firm, before broadtail dyeing 

 was perfected, 20,000 skins were sacrificed to experiments in the labo- 

 ratory. In all lamb skins, the aim is to leave the skin a bluish black. 



Mole must be washed in soapy water and wrung dry and the 

 dye always laid on so the edges match, but no two pieces of the mole- 

 skin run the grain of the fur in the same direction. Best grade 

 moles need not be dyed except at the edges. 



It is only ten years since muskrat and rabbit dyeing were so 

 perfected as to put these pelts on the market as desirable fur. 

 Ten years more may witness processes so improved as to put Chinese 

 goat on the market cheap as wool scarfs, or old-fashioned mitts. 

 Meantime, enough has been told of dye processes to show why furs 

 are furs and command commensurate prices in proportion to fur 

 substitutes. All in all, from the record of ten years' improvement 

 in dyeing, I am not afraid of such extermination of fur bearers as to 

 put furs beyond the reach of all buyers except the rich ; but I am 

 impressed by the fact that any furs requiring from 1600 to 5600 hand 

 processes should receive the care and preservation of fine diamonds. 



