The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-15
NEXT WINTERS FURS
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
By Frederic j. Haskin, Director.
Washington, ID. @.


York, which is now the greatest fur
market in the world. are busily pre-
pairing to meet this happy combination
of circumstances; they are drawing
upon all the fur-producinG countries
on earth for the rare and beautiful
peItries that wealthy women demand
A glimpse of the storerooms of one
of the big importers is truly impress
sive. You may see, for example,
rack perhaps forty feet long loaded
with silver fox skins, and represent
ing an investment of nearly hundred
thousand dollars, for each raw skin Is
worth from two hundred and fifty
to thousand dollars There are long
tables piled high with the fur of red
fox-windows Of soft fluffy reds and
browns. Mink and marten and sable
hang in rich glossy festoons from The
roof, as do punches of ermine, SLOW
white save for the faint golden tinge
on the sides. There are great stacks
of Australian raccoon, which IS TO be
popular fur this fall. and South Amer
lean guiana cito, which VIII be much
worn by little girls.
Down in the cellar the raw furs ere
stored in bales and stacks There are
great quantities of glossy beaver from
Quebec, of lynx and coyote and husky
dog from western Canada, of creatures
you never heard of from all the con-
tinents on earth. America and Russia
leads, but there is hardly a country
that does not contribute something.
Most of the imported furs are very
expensive because of high cSan
freight rates and heavy sub
marine insurance, but the well dressed
woman must have all the varieties at
whatever cost. The manufacturers
are pretty good at making substitu'e s-
Skunk makes a fair grade of Russian
sable. But some furs cannot we'll be
imita ted-Persian, or unborn lamb.
for example. Attempts to produce it
in the United States have always fail
ed. There is a misconception about
this rare fur, by the way, which the
dealers are very anxious to have cor
rected. Not so very long ago q lead
ing woman's journal published a tear
squeezing article about the horrid way
in which unborn lamb is produced
There were two pictures, one which
showed a young lady wearing the FUR.
and the other a ferocious man stand
ing over a fallen eve with a knife
about a yard long
Now, as a matter of fact, this par
ticular grade of Persian lamb is only
produced accidentally. During the
hard winters many ewes, heavy with
young, are killed by the cold This
is the source of unborn lamb. No man
could afford to kill his grown stock
in order to produce it.
This is the greatest year the Ameri-
can fur business has ever known
Right after the war broke out the in
The fur auctions had always been held
in London, and many of our native
furs crossed the water and came back.
Then, too, there was a large export
trade, and a good part of the manu-
featuring was done in Europe. When
shipments of all kinds ceased. the
machinery of the fur business was
necessarily thrown out of gear.
But it soon became apparent that
the disaster was not as great as it had
appeared. A fur auction in New York
was organized and has been held twice
a year ever since with increasing sue
cess. New York is also great fur
manufacturing center. Even before
the war, more furs were manufactured
here than in London, Moscow or Paris,
and the industry has-now been so ex-
banded and improved that it can get
along very well without any assistance
from Europe.
Embroidered by success at least one
great New York fur house has made
the daring move of establishing
branch in the wilds of Canada to buy
furs direct from the trappers. This
means nothing less than competition
with the great and famous Hudson
Bay company. But the fur dealer who
has made the move is more than salts
fled with the result. He has built an
establishment on Peace river, in the
heart of the Canadian fur country, and
Is DlOdlng ICT JEdOc ny lA1C
pers a better assortment" than do the
Hudson bay posts, by paying cash,
and by selling merchandise at as
small a profit he possibly can
This year he brought out nice lot of
fuFs.
OF course competition in the field
means better days for the trapper,
and in fact, he is an increasingly pros
porous individual all over the coun ry
There are several publications devoted
to his interests, and he is always we'll
posted as to the market value of furs.
Often he is a shrewd speculator.
One has tendency to think of the
fur-bea ring animals as fast disappear
ing. AS a matter of fact, some species
are decreasing, others increasing, but
the annual crop of fur in the United
States is still enormous, and it comes
from every state in the union, except
the very far south. Even LouiSt2 ma
furnishes several million good musk
rat skins every year. Also there are
trapperS making a living short dis
lance from New York City, for the
Jersey marshes still furnish a large
supply of muskrat and some skunk.
as does also Long Island. A few foxes
are still sent in by Long Island trap
pers.
Our own northwestern states and
Canada are of course the big fur pro-
ducing area. In Alberta and Saskatch-
evan the fur is still abundant, while
that great wilderness known as the
Northwest territories is an almost I'M
touched field for trapping.
So much has been said and written
about the artificial propaga ton of fur
bearing animals that you might he
led to suppose a considerable guam
THY of fur is produced in that way. As
a matter of fact foxes are the only
animals that are raised in captivity in
any numbers. Skunk, mink and other
varieties are successfully raised
by government experimenters and
others, but no industry of commercial
| Importance has been started The -wC
great sources of American fur remain.
| the northern wilderness of the con-
! tinent, where the professional trepr, rs
and traders operate, and the arm;- OF
small trappers who live in almost ev-
| ery county outside of the far south
| Fur styles do not change as rapidly
as those in other lines, but there is
enough variation to keep the design