936 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. io, 1910. 
young are ready for the market six weeks after 
leaving the shell, when they will tip the scales at 
from two to three pounds, so rapid is their growth. 
While the industry is yet in its infancy, the 
growing and ever increasing constriction of our 
open seasons, and the undoubted decrease in the 
wild stock, makes it certain to take a prominent 
place in the game preserving cause at an early 
day. Scores of Nebraska farmers are experi¬ 
menting, and where everything is as easy as it 
is in this line, there will be but few to fail, and 
so great will be the returns that we are sure to 
have some extensive plants in the different sec¬ 
tions of this State. 
While it has been my endeavor to keep Forest 
and Stream posted as to the movements of the 
sportsmen in this important section of the coun¬ 
try’s great field, I imagine that I have failed as 
yet to give an adequate idea of how rapidly all 
the best territory of the State of Nebraska is 
being secured by lease and purchase for the pur¬ 
pose of private shooting grounds, game preserves 
and sanctuaries. 
In addition to the extensive area along and in 
the Platte River below Gretna, lately possessed 
by the Smartweed Club, the Yellowstone Gun 
Club’s lands and waters lie adjacent, and are 
even more extensive than those of the Smart- 
weed Club. The Yellowstone is one of the older 
of our sportsmen’s organizations, and has the 
largest membership of all. a hundred or more, 
many of them prominent politicians and office 
holders who spend much time on the preserve 
throughout the shooting seasons. 
They have a series of up-to-date club houses 
with all the surrounding accessories, all of brick 
and cement, located on their own chain of islands 
in the Platte. Then there is the Hon. Charles 
Metz preserve — one of the most costly and ele¬ 
gant institutions of this kind in the United States 
— upon Raccoon Lake in Cherry county. While 
the whole thing is owned and controlled by Mr. 
Metz, the old Merganser Ducking Club, of which 
I have the honor of being the founder, is the 
body of wealthy men who alone enjoy its rare 
privileges. 
The Merriam Club, on the shores of Beaver 
Lake, thirty miles west of Metz's villa, and the 
Red Deer Lodge, forty miles south in the same 
county, are also powerful sportsmen’s organiza¬ 
tions, and control thousands of acres of the 
best wildfowl and chicken grounds. 
The Strickley Club, in Fillmore county, is a 
well handled and popular body, and the Harry 
Root shooting lodge, on Clear Lake, on the 
Dakota border, is one of the State’s most charm¬ 
ing resorts in the hands of a few millionaires. 
The Dwight-Pixley Lodge, on the Platte, near 
Clark’s, is an exclusive little place, and the 
McCawley-Elwood preserve on Big Creek, north 
of Seneca, in the sandhills, is a beautiful and 
most interesting place. Conrad Young, Arthur 
Keeline, Sandy Griswold and a number of other 
well known sportsmen are just now negotiating 
for Alkali, Swan and Coyote lakes, near Brown¬ 
lee, and will have possession by Jan. 1. 
Sam Richmond, the best known sportsman in 
the State, who is also a poet, naturalist and 
scholar, with Jake Snider, owns the Dusky Owl’s 
Nest on the Middle Loup, the best mal’ard and 
goose region left in the whole State. Sam Rich¬ 
mond is also mine host of the Richmond, in 
Fullerton. Sandy Griswold. 
Trappers Take Notice. 
The very complete article on the fur trade to¬ 
day, which is printed in the last edition of New- 
house’s Trapper’s Guide, brings that trade down 
to the beginning of 1910, when the book was 
issued, but the changes in the trade are rapid. 
It is well understood that furs are becoming- 
more and more popular all over the civilized 
world, that the localities where fur-bearing ani¬ 
mals exist in sufficient number to be trapped are 
continually contracting, and that the skins of 
domestic animals are coming to be used more 
and more, so that the hides of d.omestic dogs, 
cats, sheep, cows and horses are the daily wear 
of many women in our cities. Moreover, various 
furs once common are now dyed, and when given 
high sounding names are sold at great prices. 
THE RUSSIAN FUR TRADE. 
In the introduction to the Trapper’s Guide, 
reference was made to the Siberian fur trade, 
and especially to the fairs at Nijni Novgorod 
and Irbit. At these fairs in the year 1910, the 
prices as reported from Consul General Snod¬ 
grass, of Moscow, are tremendously high. He 
says that these high prices make the furs ac¬ 
cessible only to foreign buyers, for the local pur¬ 
chasers will not pay those prices. The high 
prices lead to closer and closer trapping, and 
this again decreases the supply of the valuable 
furs, which drives prices up still higher. The 
result of this is likely to be a refusal on the part 
of foreign buyers to purchase furs, because they 
do not believe they can sell them at such extra¬ 
ordinary prices. 
Mr. Snodgrass sends an account translated 
from a Moscow newspaper, the Russkoye Slovo, 
which tells of the decline of the Russian fur 
trade, and gives reasons for the decline. The 
article says: 
“Without exaggeration it may be said that the 
principal supplier of fur to the world’s market 
is our Siberia. Therefore, from time imme¬ 
morial the prices of fur at the Siberian fairs 
have served as a barometer to the world's market. 
a 
“One of the largest Siberian fairs is that held 
in the summer at Yakutsk, with a circulation of 
millions of rubles. This fair continues for two- 
months, and thereto come fur traders from the 
most distant points in Siberia, bringing all that 
has been obtained by them during the protracted 
winter. Telegrams giving the result of this fair 
state that the prices of furs have risen, compared 
with last year’s prices, more than 50 per cent. 
"Certainly, if such an abnormal rise in prices 
would have been the natural result of the in¬ 
crease in the demand, there would have been 
cause for joy over the situation, but comparing 
the figures of the quantity of fur at the Siberian 
fairs, one is compelled to accept the fact that 
the rise in prices is due to the yearly decline in 
the supply at these fairs. 
TRADE LONG CONTROLLED BY AMERICANS. 
“This condition should have been evident long 
ago. From the middle of the last century the 
fur trade, on account of lack of roads and the 
unsatisfactory condition of the ways of com¬ 
munication with the natives of our Northwest, 
has been in the hands of Americans. 
“Here are the facts: The richest places for 
fur in Siberia are the Yakutsk territory and the 
Kamchatka and Oukhotsk peninsulas. Sable, 
Arctic fox and squirrel are brought from those 
places principally. Last year the first steamship 
carrying Russian merchant fur traders to the 
Choukotsk peninsula arrived there at the end of 
June, but their success was limited. At the Cape 
of Dejneva it was found that all the fur had 
been sold to one American firm, with the excep¬ 
tion of a few skins of the white bear, and on 
those an option was held by Americans. 
“On the Gulf of St. Lawrence, at Ounin, the 
capital of the Tchutche, the natives could only 
offer white bear skins and a few hare and seal 
skins to the Russians. All the other valuable fur 
was sold to Americans. 
“At Providence Bay a large quantity of seal 
skins were bought by the Americans, and at 
the Gulf of St. Nicholas there was a quantity 
of furs, the property of an American citizen. 
Only upon visiting Anadir could the Russians 
do a comparatively fair business with the natives. 
“The diminution of the quantity of furs at the 
Siberian fairs should not, therefore, be surpris¬ 
ing, nor that the price of the same is rising from 
year to year, rising in one year more than 50 per 
cent. If these conditions continue, the great 
Siberian fairs, such as the Yakutsk summer fair, 
will lose entirely their importance, and the Rus¬ 
sian fur trade in Siberia will come to an end. 
SUPPLY UNEQUAL TO THE DEMAND. 
“The vast number of Siberian exiles live main¬ 
ly by their ability to trap in those regions, with¬ 
out molestation on the part of the authorities, 
and as a consequence fur-bearing animals are 
not multiplying as fast as they are trapped. This 
decimation has been going on for many years, 
with the result that furs. are becoming scarce 
and the prices are soaring.” 
IN CANADA. 
The consul-general at Charlottetown, on Prince 
Edward Isle — Frank Deedmeyer — writes: 
“Only a few- of the fur-bearing animals, once 
native in Prince Edward Island, are now found 
here. The progress of agriculture and the zeal 
of the hunter and trapper have exterminated 
many species, such as the otter, the beaver, the 
bear and the marten. 
“About 25,000 muskrats, 500 milks, 1,000 red 
foxes and a few weasels are now killed in this 
province. The black fox is bred by a few 
parties, who keep the methods employed secret. 
A large, lustrous black fox skin is worth $1,500 
in this province. Muskrats, principally killed by 
the Micmac Indians for their flesh, bring twenty- 
five cents; red fox, $4 to $5; mink, $4.50 to $5, 
and weasels, twenty-five cents. Most of the ship¬ 
ments go to New York, London and Toronto. 
No furs are dressed here. Prices this year are 
50 per cent, higher than five years ago.” 
Too Mild for Wildfowl. 
Baltimore, Md., Dec. 1 . — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Owing to the mild weather and the 
steady westerly winds, causing low tides, the 
month of November has closed with few ducks 
killed in the Upper Chesapeake. 
At the opening of the season prospects for a 
good month were fine, there being some early 
arrivals of large flocks of redheads and plenty 
of food. Shooting on the Susquehanna flats has 
been poor; the gunners hope for rougher weather 
in December to send down more ducks. 
Lower down the bay fairly good kills of black¬ 
heads have been made, one bag of 130 being 
made in a morning’s shooting by three guns, but 
very few good ducks have been killed anywhere. 
Talbott Denmead. 
