Nine Hundred per Cent. Dividend.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 20 November 1914, Page 4

Nine Hundred per Cent. Dividend.

+ • FORTUNES IN FOX BREEDING. Two million si or! ing' is the estimate:! value of the fox farming industry of Oanada--an industry which of Jiile years has increased in importance and wealth to such an extent that people to-day are as anxious to invest their money in fox farms as they were to speculate in rubber shares two or throe years ago. And their eagerness to do so will be readily understood when mention is made of the extraordinary dividends which have been paid this year by fox-raising companies. The latter have been chiefly estivi*lished in Prince Edward Island, and among the principal companies n-« the Tlunhury, with a capital -J £20,000, whose last declared di\ • • dead w*as 320 per cent. ; Spring Park, with a capital of £18,!iO0, which paid a dividend of 4ns. per cent., and 100 per cent, stock bonus; the Prospect, which paid 110 per cent., and a 200 per cent. stock i bonus ; the Peerless, 900 per cent. ; the Dalton, 40 per cent. ; Silver Tip, 95 per cent. ; Murray Harbour, 145 per cent.; Magir, per cent; the Eureka, 170 per cent.; and the Riverside Farming- Company, 2-) 5 per cent. WHRN THE BOOM STARTED. Recently an ofllci.al Canadian report declared that the capital invested in the industry of raising black foxes for pelts during 1912 realised 300 per cent. As a matter of fact, the industry has lately developed into a gambling mania. There are great risks attached to fox farming, but the profits resulting from expert managership of a good stock of foxes are such as to encourage the most timorous speculators to invest their money. The boom really started about twenty-five years ■ ago, . when a couple of hunters on Prince Edward Island realised that the demand for fox fur was fast outgrowing the supply. They started experiments in breeding, and carried on their work very quietly ior several years at a handsome profit. Others were ultimately attracted by their success, and as years went by fos farms sprang up all over the place. £7,000 FOR A PAIR OF FOXCS. The pelts of the black and silver fox fetch an extraordinary price in London and on the Continent, and you cannot buy one in the fur shops under £60, while the best quality fetch as much as £500. As an illustration of the value of pure-bred foxes for breeding purposes, it might be mentioned that tho two hunters who founded the industry years age hu.e sold a pair ot rare animal.? for as ii>i.:rh as £4,000. And \\-i so little was the~-"ualue and beauty of the pelt c;f the silver foX —Ttppreciated before the fox-breeding industry was started that it was possible to buy a skin for £10. One of the pioneers of the industry was the Horn Charles "Dalton, of tho Dalton Company already referred to, which paid a dividend of 40 per cent, on a capital of £125,000 this year. In 1887 Mr. .Dalton bought a pair of silvers. Their progeny was not of the rare colour. Not long after, however, he acquired a pair of the verkable silver blacks, whose peltg are of a rich and glossy black, with white "points" along the back and the hind-logs, and a pure white tip to the bushy black brush. It was from these two original animals that Mr. Dalton's ranch acquired its reputation. For a certain pair of foxes £7 ; 000 has been offered and refused, while during 1912 the Dalton sold six pairs of black foxes for shipment to Russia for £20,000. As a rule, each pair of foxes produces 50 or GO. cubs in a lifetime. The expenses of maintaining a farm are very small, for a fox costs anything from -id. to 6d. a day to keep, according to circumstances. Everything, however, depends on the knowledge of breeding. Mange and other diseases have before now completely wiped out a farm, while a £1,000 vixen may prove • barren if not properly taken cafe of. The mania for fox breeding is such that many farmers have forsaken the cultivation of the land and invested their money in fur companies, and the fever of gambling in this particular industry is so intense that this year most of the foxes were sold as I soon as they were born, and at good prices.