120 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



plentiful condition to-day ; but that is no reason for relaxing game 

 laws and permitting the cruel work of game hogs to slaughter out 

 of season old and young, male and female. 



In the 1916 New York auction sales, beaver sold at #12.75. 

 By 1920, the price was running #15 to #20 in the Montreal, New 

 York and St. Louis sales — not so great an advance as in other furs ; 

 but beaver during the years of closed seasons went out of fashion ; 

 and it is to be hoped it will stay slightly out of fashion for the next 

 ten years ; till beaver are plentiful as in the opening of the 19th 

 century. In the spring sales of 1920, 21,000 beaver were sold at 

 St. Louis, 9902 at New York, 14,000 in London, and such a very 

 large number in Montreal that they really represented more than 

 one year's crop. But practically the spring of 1920 saw almost 

 80,000 beaver sold ; and the spring sale is only one of three sales a 

 year. 



At the same auctions the sales of nutria ran 150,000 for St. Louis, 

 58,000 for New York, 20,500 for London. Nutria prices ran 50 

 cents to #6.10, which is not far short of beaver values when you 

 consider the relative size of the skins. In fact, on the base of size 

 nutria went higher than beaver; for the size of the nutria is 16 

 to 19 inches with a tail of about 12 inches; while the size of the 

 beaver is 3 to 4 feet. The size is, of course, another way to differ- 

 entiate the two skins. 



Beaver cannot be farmed in a domesticated sense. It requires 

 too large ranging ground. It must be conserved and protected by 

 closed seasons in large, well-stocked wild life parks, such as Algonquin 

 Park, Ontario. 



The beaver mates in its second year for life and in three months 

 produces its young — 2 to 3 cubs. The food consists of all aquatic 

 vegetables, the shoots of raspberries, the leaves of willows, aspens, 

 poplars. It must have an abundance of vegetable food. 



The engineering feats of the beaver have been magnified in 

 works of fiction almost laughably, but in spite of errors as to facts, 

 it would be hard to exaggerate the beaver's engineering ability. 



