4 BULLETIN 1151, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
and the meeting of these men resulted in the formation of a partner- 
ship. Their first wire pen was built on Savage Island, where Oulton 
owned a ranch. Dalton had definite ideas concerning the problems 
involved and the most promising lines to follow in developing the 
industry, but Oulton, the practical farmer and stockman, made suc- 
cess possible because of his experience and natural ability in han- 
dling live stock. 
In the course of a few years stories concerning the wealth to be 
obtained from the silver- fox business leaked out, and as the results 
of these first experiments became known a fox-farming boom started. 
Three sisters cleared $25,000 a year out of their venture. A small 
party of clerks organized a company and made $40,000 in four years. 
A pup was sold for $9,000. A consignment of 25 choice skins sent 
to London brought $34,175, an average of $1,367 per skin, the top 
prices for the choicest pelts being $2,700, $2,650, and $2,500. 
Prior to 1910 people were working to establish an industry, but 
when knowledge of Dalton's great success became public the real 
boom started. Expansion went ahead at a rapid pace, and the boom 
lasted from 1910 to 1914. The demand for breeding stock brought 
about the virtual suspension of pelt production for the time being. 
No skins were placed on the market in 1911, excepting from foxes 
too poor to be sold for breeding stock. The demand for stock was 
so great that foxes were imported into Prince Edward Island from 
nearly every Province in Canada. These were a mixture of every 
variety of silver and cross fox, and, as their breeding was not known, 
their offspring were nondescript. Nevertheless, they were used for 
breeders and sold for fabulous prices. Illicit buying and selling of 
foreign stock misrepresented by producers engaged in this practice 
was very harmful to the industry, and the brown color now cropping 
out on many ranches among supposedly pure silvers is undoubtedly 
due to foxes of unknown breeding. 
During the boom period ranches were started in New England and 
in New York and the industry rapidly spread to other parts of the 
country. 
"With the beginning of the "World War in 1914 and the general 
conditions resulting from the war the boom was killed and more 
serious thinking began among the breeders engaged in the industry. 
With the depression of the fur market in England in 1915 and the 
sudden development of the fur trade in the United States, Canadian 
ranchers 2 turned to this country for the marketing of their pelts. 
The rapid rise and fall of the fur market caused ranchers to take a 
different view of the business, and it has now come to be realized 
that pelt value is the only safe basis on which to establish the in- 
dustry. 
FOX-GROWING AREAS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
The natural habitat of the silver fox includes the greater part of 
northern North America from the central United States northward 
to and including the border of the treeless tundras. (Fig. 2.) The 
red fox inhabits nearly all of this region, but animals of the silver 
phase, although found in most parts of it, are very irregularly dis- 
2 The terms " rancher," " caretaker," " attendant," " breeder," and " feeder " as used 
in this bulletin refer to one and the same person. 
