484 1\ arbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1919. 



and distribute fish for anglers to hook, so should there be 

 State and Federal fur farms for raising the largest and best- 

 furred animals to be found on the continent for stocking 

 preserves for the benefit of trappers. Possibly here and 

 there a hunter or a poultryman may be inclined to oppose 

 this suggestion, but the hunter may be reassured by the fact 

 that game and fur animals are naturally coexistent and that 

 until steel traps and firearms appeared there was an abun- 

 dance of both. As to the poultryman's losses due to fur 

 animals they are, in the main, preventable; the price of one 

 fox pelt is sufficient to pay for a good-sized vermin-proof 

 chicken run. 



It should not be forgotten that the natural and ordinary 

 food of fur animals consists mainly of materials for which 

 mankind has little or no use, and that certain of these ani- 

 mals render the farmer a positive service by ridding his 

 orchards, fields, and pastures of some of the worst pests 

 infesting them. Generally speaking, therefore, the project 

 to increase and improve fur animals would result in turning 

 useless or harmful organisms into valuable peltries. It 

 would also enable the farmer, when the regular duties of 

 his farm are at their lowest ebb, to reap a self -raised harvest 

 of fur which has cost him nothing and which probably has 

 been developed in his service. 



O 



