160 THREE ACRES AND LIBERTY 



our Western people have not been slow to avail themselves 

 of, and we hear of men being prosecuted for breeding wolves, 

 coyotes, and bobcats, a kind of lynx, to get the government 

 bounty for the snouts or scalps. 



In a legitimate way profit may be had from such animals. 



Ernest Thompson Seton has an article in Country Life in 

 America, on raising fur-bearing animals for profit; this 

 offers a good chance for small capital and large intelligence. 

 He suggests the beaver, mink, otter, skunk, and marten, and 

 says that whoever would begin fur farming is better off with 

 five acres than with five hundred. He describes two fox 

 ranches at Dover, Maine. They raise twenty to forty silver 

 foxes a year, on a little more than half an acre of land. 

 The silver fox's fur is one of the most valuable on the market 

 and sells at an average of $150 a pelt, that is, $3000 to 

 $6000 gross for the year's work. Foxes are not expensive 

 to breed, their food consisting chiefly of sour milk and corn- 

 meal or flour made into a cake, and a little meat about once 

 a week. 



The capital required is small. A fence for the inclosure 

 should be of one and a half inch mesh No. 16 galvanized 

 wire, ten feet high, with an overhang of eighteen inches to 

 keep the foxes from escaping, and is about the only outlay 

 except for purchase of stock. 



Stakes should be driven close to the fence to keep them 

 from burrowing out. 



They are naturally clean animals, and with careful atten- 

 tion are free from disease. Mr. Stevens reports that in his 

 two years' experience he has had twenty to thirty foxes and 

 lost none by disease, while Mr. Norton, with five years' 

 experience, carrying thirty to forty, reports that one to two 

 die each year. 



