THE RARE FURS OF THE WEASEL FAMILY 101 



down, and the over hairs are so shiny they defy dye. It is the 

 darker strip down the back gives the mink garment its striped effect. 

 The animal is not a striped coat fellow like the raccoon. 



Can mink be farmed ? It is said they can. There are hundreds 

 of mink ranches in the United States and three-score in Canada 

 alone ; and the mink are undoubtedly kept in perfect health in 

 captivity in parks and zoological gardens ; but the fact remains 

 up to the present, the commercial returns have not been such that 

 they could be given to the public, or that they bulged the fur market, 

 or that they bloated up a local bank account so that secret profits 

 leaked out as in the case of the silver fox ranches. 



Mink returns will probably be one of the steps forward in fur farm- 

 ing in the next ten years. Up to the present, mink farmers can 

 make more money selling live stock than selling pelts ; but with 

 prices soaring as they have in 1920, live stock will have to turn 

 itself into pelts, or the mink farming will not go on. It seems ab- 

 surd that a mink kitten the size of your hand should sell at a higher 

 price than a two-year-old Holstein heifer; and that is one of the 

 things the fur trade will have to justify before mink farming goes 

 on to success. 



From mink farmers, who are at work to-day, these facts have 

 been gleaned : Minks must be given an extensive range. 



They must be near a creek. 



Each family must be kept in a segregated pen, or they will take 

 to the happy diversion of disembowelling one another. 



The nests are about 16 inches by 16 inches, 6 inches high, placed 

 in a box and hidden in a bank of earth. The males are given caves 

 roofed with rock. Flesh and fish are ample diet. At the end of 

 two months, mothers and young are put in separate pens. Six 

 men can manage a mink ranch of 2000 females. I do not know how 

 these figures have been worked out ; for a mink ranch with 2000 

 females should be selling at least 10,000 mink a year and clearing 

 up not far short of #200,000 a year ; and I do not know of any mink- 

 ery for which such claims are even remotely made, though it is well 



