SILVER FOX FARMING. 5 
pair. Pairs that had had large Utters were valued at about twice as 
much as 6-months-old cubs. 
The maintenance of this prodigious inflation of prices was due 
mainly to stock companies, which originally were formed by individ- 
uals without sufficient capital to engage in fox farming alone. Almost 
immediately, however, companies were formed for the benefit of those 
having foxes to sell. It was customary for a company to take them 
over. An attractive prospectus containing pictures of silver foxes, 
an account of the 1910 sale of pelts, and a list of companies which had 
paid dividends of 20 to 500 per cent was published, and the stock sold 
through brokers and solicitors. Foxes that would bring $12,000 or 
$15,000 a pair in the open market were usually capitalized in compa- 
nies at $18,000 or $20,000, which, after allowing for commissions, 
installation of pens, and other ranch necessities, left a tolerably safe 
balance from which to pay the first year's running expenses. Another 
reason for the multiplication of fox companies is found in the income 
to be derived from them by brokers and promoters, and many com- 
panies were formed by men having no other interest. The outbreak 
of the European war, in the summer of 1914, interrupted and probably 
ended these speculative operations. Ranch-bred silver foxes have 
recently been advertised for sale at from $1,500 to $2,000 a pair. In 
some of the western Provinces and Territories of Canada, where only 
those foxes born or kept for a year or more in captivity are allowed 
to be exported, prices of wild half -grown silvers run from $150 to $250 
each. Prior to the war a general stagnation in the fur trade was 
beginning to have a depressing influence on prices of live foxes. The 
June, 1914, sale of silver fox skins in London averaged only about $118 
each. From present indications values of foxes and of pelts are likely 
soon to fall as low as they were before 1910. 
In the pioneer days, when proper methods of handling foxes were 
unknown, many failures resulted from ignorance and carelessness. 
The excitement following the fur sales of 1910 hastened the improve- 
ment of methods of feeding, handling, and breeding. It also broke 
the monopoly, and caused a rapid distribution of foxes and of infor- 
mation concerning them. Now, with a comparatively large number 
of silver foxes in domestication, with a clearer understanding of their 
successful management, and with a return of moderate prices for 
breeders, a steady, healthy, and general development of shVer fox 
farming may be expected. 
Fox ranches are established in most of the Canadian Provinces and 
in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Washing- 
ton, and Alaska. In 1913 there were 277 fox ranches on Prince Ed- 
ward Island alone. There foxes have the same status as other do- 
mestic animals in being subject to taxation; this in 1913 yielded 
the Province a revenue of $37,172. In a recent report written from 
