90 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
receives half the fur caught, while the trapper 
gets the other half and all he can realize from 
the sale of the meat. In the short season of 
seventy-four*days, January 1 to March 15, dur- 
ing 1908 and 1909, trappers easily made from 
$400 to $900 each. 
The demand for the meat is growing, and all 
of it is utilized. The Baltimore market takes 
about 30,000 animals during a season, ‘the bulk 
of which come from Dorchester County, Va. 
The editor of the Cambridge Record, a local 
newspaper, stated (1909) that the muskrat in- 
dustry of Dorchester brings into the county 
about $100,000 annually. This would indicate 
that about a quarter-million of the animals are 
trapped each season. The danger of exhaust- 
ing the supply by continued close trapping has 
been discussed in Dorchester County, but trap- 
pers there maintain that with the long closed 
season, March 15 to January 1, little ground for 
anxiety on this score exists. However, it is 
worth keeping in mind. 
Possibilities of this business. There are 
many places in all the eastern half of the 
United States where a similar industry might 
