276 AMERICAN FISH CULTURE. 



exhausted fur trade begins to be made pressing by enormous 

 prices, comes up the idea of these gentlemen in this region 

 of country who have undertaken, with thoroughly Yankee 

 shrewdness, to propagate one of the most valuable of the 

 fur-bearing animals, the mink, in a state of semi- domestica- 

 tion or confinement ; and the fact that their experiment is 

 so far promising nothing but successful results, is a fact to 

 be announced as one of public interest and importance. 



" Messrs. Phillips & Woodcock, whose ' Minkery' I 

 have visited, are not, I believe, the pioneers of the business, 

 but entered upon it with some guidance from the experience 

 of others who, during late years, have been testing the 

 domestication of the mink. They commenced their under- 

 taking in December, 1866, with seven pairs of spring 

 ' kittens/ as they call them, from which they expected 

 no increase the following spring last year. They were 

 agreeably disappointed, however, by obtaining young from 

 six of the females, altogether to the number of twenty-six. 

 The product was from one to seven each, showing a remark- 

 able variation. It is said by those experienced that. the 

 prolificness of the mink at the age at which this increase 

 was obtained, may be considered as its minimum, as it is 

 common for them in later periods to bear from six to nine 

 annually ; so that the seven original pairs may be expected 

 to largely increase their progeny next spring, while the 

 young ' kittens' of last spring will at the same time become 

 fruitful. Another year, therefore, is likely to multiply the 

 present stock of the breeders several times. 



" The ' Minkery/ designed to accommodate one hundred 

 minks for breeding, consists, first, of an enclosure about forty 

 feet square, made by digging a trench one foot deep, laying a 

 plank at the bottom, and from the outer edge starting the 

 wall, which consists of boards four feet high, with a board 

 to cap the top, projecting inward eight or ten inches to 



