82 ART OF CURING SKINS. 



inch up on the sides. Split this board through the centre with a 

 knife or saw. Finally, prepare a wedge of the same length and 

 thickness, one inch wide at the large end, and tapering to three 

 eighths of an inch at the small end, to be driven between the halves 

 of the board. This is a stretcher suitable for a mink or a marten, 

 A larger size, suitable for the full grown otter or wolf, should be 

 five feet and a half long, seven inches wide at the large end when 

 fully spread by the wedge, and six inches at the small end. An 

 intermediate size is required for the fisher, raccoon, fox, and some 

 other animals, the proportions of which can be easily figured out. 



These stretchers require that the skin of the animal shall not be 

 ripped through the belly, but must be stripped off whole. This is 

 done in the following manner: Commence with the knife at the 

 hind feet, and slit down to the vent. Cut around the vent, and strip 

 the skin from the bone of the tail with the help of the thumb nail or 

 a split stick. Make no other slits in the skin, except in the case of 

 the otter, whose tail requires to be split, spread, and tacked on to 

 the board. Peel the skin from the body by drawing it over itself, 

 leaving the fur inward. 



In this condition the skin should be drawn on to the split board, 

 (with the back on one side and the belly on the other) to its utmost 

 length, and fastened with tacks or by notches cut in the edge of the 

 board, and then the wedge should be driven between the two halves. 

 Finally, make all fast by a tack at the root of the tail, and another 

 on the opposite side. The skin is then stretched to its utmost 

 capacity, as a boot-leg is stretched by the shoemaker's "tree" and it 

 may be hung away in the proper place, by a hole in one end of the 

 stretcher, and left to dry. 



A modification of this kind of stretcher, often used in curing the 

 skins of the musk-rat and other small animals, is a simple board ? 

 without split or wedge, three sixteenth of an inch thick, twenty 

 inches long, six inches wide at the large end, and tapering to five 

 and a half inches at the small end, chamfered and rounded as in 

 the other cases. The animal should be skinned as before directed, 

 and the skin drawn tightly on to the board and fastened with about 

 four tacks. 



THE HOOP STBETCHER. The skins of large animals, such 

 as the beaver and the bear, are best dried by spreading them, at full 

 size in a hoop. For this purpose, a stick of hickory or other flexible 

 wood should be cut, long enough to entirely surround the skin when 



