FOX FARMING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 30, 28 September 1912, Page 4

FOX FARMING.

Though it is not altogether a no/"I idea in North America, Canada has recently made a new venture in farming, and it is reported that fox pincher; have been successfully started. Tweatv-

five years ago or so some enterprising 'American stocked one of the Pribybf Islands with some blue foxes, which seemed doomed to extinction if thcvwere not protected by some artifi.-'al means. The Americans were business men, and their scheme has proved commercially successful—so much so teat the United States Department of Agriculture now issues reports on foxculture, giving charts which show the parts of the country suitable for fox raising. The best places are thos» whose winter climate is severe. !jj Nova Scotia, it is the black fcix which

is kept in captivity. Black foxes are merely a sport from the common American red fox. In a wild state .t is believed that the red mothers frequently kill their black cub§, so the supply of wild fur of this colour does not equal the demand, which comes principally from the' nobility .of Kr.fsia and Austria. Under domesticity the black foxes throw back'fairlyifrequently to the parent red'stock;, every generation, however, the numbers 1 he come less and less. • One far-n in Nova Scotia is about thirty acres : -iri area,, fenced securely round with 'a high fence which curves inward at the top for, two feet r aJKI extends [under, ground *for' another two, so that! the foxes can neiher climb nor burrow bur. About twenty pairs of foxes are kept on it. , , Thoir food i ,cosvs, ; tAyoio.i:-,thr' / > i e i cents a day. By care in breeding and feeding it is claimed that the fir of the domesticated fox has been rendered better and thicker than that of-its wild brother. . •: . '