FARMING MUSKRAT FOR FUR 91 



is the terminus of a 300 mile stretch of Saskatchewan River, which 

 is pure swamp and muskeg — the ideal home of the muskrat because 

 of the exhaustless supply of a bulbous reed, which grows higher 

 than field corn for a width of 40 to 50 miles, where the ground is so 

 damp the intrusion of foxes and wolves is impossible except in 

 winter, when the muskrat is hidden in his burrow deep under the 

 ice or in the dome of a house, through which the hard frost prevents 

 fox or wolf burrowing. It is the ideal sheltered muskrat preserve of 

 the North forever, just as Delaware Bay is the ideal preserve of the 

 muskrat on the Atlantic Coast. Ten years later, the muskrat was 

 selling up at Cumberland Lake and at Norway House for 90^, 

 which prevailed to the opening of the War in 1914. Then came the 

 perfections of American dyeing processes producing muskrats 

 that could not be detected from Alaska seal. Last year, the musk- 

 rat sold at Cumberland Lake and at Norway House for #5 a pelt. 

 That figure would be too high an average for the 10 million muskrat 

 pelts yearly taken in America. Well, put the figure at an average 

 of $2. You have a total of $20,000,000. It is only a few years ago 

 that America's entire fur trade did not equal $20,000,000. Even 

 when 100,000 seal pelts were coming out of Alaska in a year, valued 

 undyed at $10 as I found them in 1875, or $30 as I found them in 

 1911-12-13, you have the entire output of Alaska seal in its best 

 days not equal to a sixth the value of muskrat to-day. Muskrats 

 sold at from 10 to 50^ in 1907; at 80 to 85^ in 191 1 ; at $1.25 in 

 1912; and jumped to $5 and $7 for perfect pelts in 1920. 



Of all the fur-bearing animals, muskrats can be the most easily 

 farmed ; but they have not been farmed up to date because a little 

 care of their natural runways produces all the trade can consume. 

 Stock a marsh where the muskrat's natural food is plentiful ; and 

 nature will do the rest. A few years ago, boys hunted muskrat 

 marshes without let or hindrance. To-day "ratting rights" are 

 rented half to the owner, half to the trapper; and many a marsh 

 owner along the Great Lakes, or Chesapeake Bay, has been sur- 

 prised to find his swamp ground yielding him higher revenues than 



