98 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



Russian sables only five to eight inches long sell all the way 

 up to $700 which is — inch for inch — many times the value of 

 a silver fox. Hudson sable, which is nothing but American marten 

 and ought never to be called sable, sold in the 1920 sales from $201 

 in Montreal to #460 in St. Louis, and from these prices averages 

 for different grades ran at #18, $32.50, $50, #91. Fisher, which is 

 much larger than marten or sable, brought $125 in St. Louis, $236 

 in New York, $148 to $345 in Montreal, while mink prices in the 

 same sales rated from $19 to #75 and I think in one rare lot ran to 

 $90. (Incidentally, I may add that when camping some few years 

 ago on the head waters of Bow River in the Rockies, I could have 

 bought from the Indians the best mink that ever were "minked" 

 at 90^ a skin — which illustrates how much greater a gamble the 

 fur trade is for tenderfeet than the wildest markets of Wall Street. 

 It makes me physically sick to recall that early in the 1900's when 

 in Labrador, I could have bought the finest otter for #10, which now 

 sells at $100 plus a pelt. Considering these prices and the advance 

 in muskrat from 12^ to #7, it isn't hard to explain why fur traders 

 become rich or go stone-broke quicker than in almost any other 

 industry except the finding of gold nuggets.) 



"If," says the Canadian Conservation Report of the weasel fur 

 bearers, "this family could be domesticated there is no doubt that 

 a market for more than $10,000,000 worth of raw fur annually 

 could be found." This for Canada only. The absorptive power 

 of the American market for these rare furs could not be overdone 

 and would reach far beyond $10,000,000. 



All the weasel family are not water lovers. The marten and 

 sable prefer rocks and trees ; and the marten's fur is always sleeker 

 when he has had access to an abundant supply of raspberries, blue- 

 berries, wild cranberries and haws ; but all the weasel except otter 

 are blood-suckers and blood-drunkards. 



Hornaday gives the annual crop of mink in America at 60,000, 

 of pine marten at 120,000, of fishers at about 10,000. Brass esti- 

 mates the world supply of mink as 600,000 from America ; 20,000 



