BEAVER AND CANADIAN HISTORY 195 



promptly inaugurated and intelligently pursued by 

 the now united Fur Trading and Governing 

 Corporation. For more than a decade subsequent 

 to 1821 each beaver district in the chartered and 

 licensed territories of the Hudson's Bay Company 

 was annually restricted to the collection of a certain 

 fixed number of beaver, which course eventually 

 proved of much benefit to all concerned. By this 

 means the perpetuation of the beaver was insured 

 in sections where reckless slaughter had almost 

 exterminated it, while the resulting expansion in 

 more forward localities naturally followed. With 

 the view, however, of reconciling them to this 

 enforced mode of preservation, the natives were 

 strongly urged and encouraged to devote their best 

 energies to the trapping of martens and other fur- 

 bearing animals. After the beaver were known to 

 have largely increased in numbers, and still sold 

 well, the above rule was gradually relaxed ; and as 

 the wants of the Indians in those days were com- 

 paratively few, they never experienced any particular 

 hardship from the limit thus imposed upon them 

 in the general interest. It may be here mentioned 

 that the Company never encouraged the hunting of 

 beaver or any other pelt out of season. On the 

 contrary they strictly prohibited the killing of 

 beaver in summer, and would only reluctantly 

 accept the skins of such animals as they were 

 assured had been absolutely necessary for food 

 purposes. 



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