48a = RECREATION. 
one exception is the skunk. Besides, it is 
one of the only 3 fur-bearing animals (the 
bear and the domestic cat are the other 2) 
that has a natural black color. All other 
turs that appear black are dyed, and can 
never compete with the natural black, 
which unyariably sells: first andy at top 
prices. While we have many proofs that 
a number of the still considered danger- 
ous animals are so only when starving 
or alarmed, and by nature are good- 
humored, domestic, and partial to man, 
the skunk is away in the lead. Skunks, in 
fact, are like cats and kittens, just as tame 
and gentle, far less mischievous, and if 
not as useful, vastly more profitable and 
even more prolific. 
The profitable side might not at first 
glance be evident, for the skins are worth 
10 cents each; but that is for Canadian 
skunks: %, Ti is >seurious» that while the 
choicest of the world’s furs come almost 
exclusively from Canada, and its skunks 
are of amammothsizeunknown elsewhere, 
they are inferior. They may be termed 
a badly overgrown species, always with 
long, broad stripes of white fur, leaving 
little black. The quality is hairy and wiry 
rather than furry, with a woolly under- 
growth. The flanks and belly are thin or 
devoid of fur. The pelt is so thick 
that when dressed it makes a heavy, clum- 
sy, inferior article, and for most purposes 
requires dyeing, which increases expense. 
In the far Northwest, among the Indians, 
the skunk skins, like those of the little in- 
ferior muskrat of that region, are sure 
to get dried in the sun or by camp fires, 
and so rapidly that the pelt ‘burns’. 
While this is not always detectible, it 
causes the pelt to go to pieces and be- 
come worthless when being dressed. The 
low price explains this careless drying by 
the Indians, who prepare all other skins 
in true red man fashion. 
The skunk of the states is a very dif- 
ferent creature. Though not so large, it 
is of excellent size, heavily furred, fine 
as silk, rather free from hair, which is 
discernible only to an expert, the color 
an immaculate glossy black, with steel 
blue-blackunder fur to the roots, and no 
' wooliness. The pelt is as thin as parch- 
ment, and sound, and dresses like a piece 
of snow-white finest kid. Frequently the 
fur is entirely free from white, and any 
one having a fair number af such to send 
direct to reputable manufacturers has no 
trouble in getting $1.50 net each for all 
he can supply. Within the past Io years 
the price has ranged up to $2.50 and is al- 
ways excellent. 
The finest skunks in size, quality and all 
points come from New Jersey, back from 
the sea or its estuaries and influences. 
The next choicest come from Pennsylva- 
nia, New York, and Michigan, in order 
named, and are beauties. The Vermont 
and New Hampshireskunks are big fellows 
with broad white stripes, and while of 
good quality are otherwise too much like 
the Canadians to be worth raising. The 
choicest in the sec‘ions named are found 
in the well settled fertile farm sections, 
where they multiply and live so high as 
to grow unwelcome, and any one can have . 
them who will trap them. For breeding 
purposes, they can be trapped any time of 
the year. 
Skunks are nearly a half-domesticated 
cat, and will thrive anywhere. Any aban- 
doned tumble-down building, (the more 
extensive and rambling the better), out in 
the country and with an acre enclosed ina 
poultry wire mesh, is all that is needed for 
them. They are pronounced vegetarians 
and like human ones have a weakness for 
what is called “hen fruit,” with the hen 
thrown in. They need not, however, be 
fed on milk and honey. The more com- 
monplace swill or garbage is good for 
them, and vastly m re profi. ble than if 
fed to pork. 
Their offensiveness comes from a little 
sack, separate and distinct from all else, 
and is meant only for defense. It is rarely 
used. The raiser can go among them with 
the same impunity -s among poultry. An 
accident is yet to be heard of, and need 
never occur so long as dogs and alarming 
things are kept away. The man in every 
skunk neighborhood who has been hand- 
ed down to history as having kept skunks 
to spite his neighbors and stirred them up 
when the wind was in the right direction 
is wholly a myth. Get your breeding 
skunks during the cummer, when they 
have neither fur nor salable value and 
cost nothing. They should be killed and 
skinned for fur only in January, Feb- 
ruary and March. 

AN EASY WAY TO GET A GRAMOPHONE. 
I desire to say a word personally to 
RECREATION subscribers about the gramo- 
phone—the talking machine which uses the 
flat, signed, indestructible records. 
This most wonderful instrument has been 
such a source of pleasure to me and my 
friends for the past 12 months that I would 
rejoice to have one in the possession of every 
subscriber to this magazine, and if I could 
afford it I would make every one of you a 

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