FUR FACTS 29 



What the Trapper Should do During the Summer 



When the trapping season ends, every trapper should consider 

 it his own duty to refrain from trapping during the mating season, 

 and to help increase the supply of animals in every way he can. 



The first thing to do is to go over your trap line carefully, and 

 be sure that you do not leave any open sets lying around all summer. 

 Take in your traps and wash them in strong lye water, and then 

 hang them in a dry, shady place, where you can find them conven- 

 iently when the new trapping season opens in the fall. 



It is not enough that you should cease from your own trapping 

 once the season is over; go out among all your friends and neighbors 

 and prevail upon them to join in the work of fur conservation. Get 

 everyone to agree to trap only when pelts are good. 



The fur crop in your section really belongs to you and is a part 

 of your personal property. So it is wise and profitable to keep in 

 close touch with it during the summer when there is no trapping. 

 In this way you will protect and increase your own wealth. 



Protection 



Until a few years ago there was a general prejudice against musk- 

 rats among farmers whose bottom lands they inhabited. The 

 farmer's chief complaint was that they burrowed under his fields and 

 occasionally nibbled his crop, thus causing him losses, seldom stop- 

 ping to consider that the muskrat pelts would more than pay for the 

 trifling annoyance the animals caused. Farmers oftejn set out to 

 exterminate them by draining the land, poisoning, shooting and 

 destroying them in every way possible. 



For every case where it is shown that the mus.krat attacked 

 crops on lands near marshes, there is another which shows that he 

 left crops entirely alone, even though they were near at hand. 



It has taken the American farmer a number of years to realize 

 just what a money-making asset the possession of muskrat marsh 

 or ponds on his lands is to him. Time was when .he either ignored 

 muskrats (save for the sport of catching them) oar actually drove 

 them out while subject to the belief that they were pests. 



Now the more astute American farmer looks on the presence of 

 muskrats in his bottom lands just as he regards th cornfields of the 

 higher slopes as a crop. 



He encourages them to breed, protects them during the mating 

 season, traps them only when the pelts are good atfd makes every 



