The Cordova daily times., 1923-03-07

especially if he be a beginner in the business, has his greatest cares and tribulations; this is the time of the year when if he goes over the island and examine carefully the fox dens, during a long, continued storm, or dry, cold, freezing weather, he will think and believe the scarcity of tracks around the dens, and from the small amount of food eaten, and the stiffness of the barking of the foxes, that probably poachers have been at work. or that his foxes are dead or missing.
 Do not be discouraged. Your foxes are hibernating, as nearly all other fur bearing animals do. When the next warm spell comes, your foxes will come out again and eat everything ill sight. Your foxes w:.i be mating and rutting in February.
 Now is the time of the year to pre- pare the males and females by proper feeding and care, for the large pro- life filters that they should have, and that you so much desire.
 Take an old ax or spade and go to the nearest point on the beach from the fox den, where there are barnacles, and chop them off the rocks, so that the foxes can get them without gnaw- ing them off. If the foxes are com pelled to gnaw them off the rocks, which they will do at this season of the year, they will break and ruin their teeth. A fox with ruined teeth is quite a useless animal, and should be killed at once.
 The female fox that is given plenty of barnacles and clans in the months of January and February will give birth to twice as many pups as one that does not get that food.
 Try this out and you will be sur prised and pleased with the result.
 Now that all the islands in Alaska available and suitable for fur farm ing, are leased for that purpose, it now devolves on the Forestry Department and the Federal government to lease the shore line of the Territory to fur farmers, in tract of say five square miles to one citizen or ten square ,,;loc +o o p,ap and wifa at q sljta h1a rental of say five dollars for square mile per year.
 There are thousands of miles of beach line in Alaska that are already stocked with mink, marten, otter, er- mine and fox, etc., that if properly cared for and fed and protected, would produce splendid returns for the les sees. Ten miles of beach line at rental of $50 per year for a man and wife, if properly cared for, should pro- duce 200 mink per year after the first two years, 50 martens, and 200 ermine per year, throughout the southeastern section of Alaska.
 Through southwestern Alaska, there are large areas of shore and beach land that are well stocked with red, cross and silver foxes, besides mink and otter, waiting to be cared for, fed and protected, rather than to be ex- amined by ruthless poisoning and trapping, as is the method at the pres ent.
 We are familiar with fur bearing animal conditions along the entire 10000 miles of sea coast, and the of miles of river channels in Alaska. It will be our aim to as- sist and help the pioneer fur farm CTS of the great Northland to make it product $20,000,000 year in ten years, and supply the meat hungry hordes of Asia and the United States with millions of head of domesticated rein- deer. If Alaska is given proper legis- lation, the fur industry nursed and cared for, and developed as it should DS, IhooC Al6uA Sdu dlll VIII Ut eA- ceeded.
 Already small and quite worthless islands of two or three hundred acres in extent that five years ago were the home of family or two of mink or otter, and the nesting place of several bald eagles, is producing twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars worth of fur animals per year.
 The industry is yet in it's infancy, but is beyond the experimental stage, like the reindeer, it is proven sue cess. Watch the fur industry in Alas ka grow!
 The mink is proving an attractive asset to the fur farmer. In fact to the man engaged in the rat industry he most consistently forces himself on their attention, by reason of his proclivities as a poacher on the rat domain, therefore he has to be dealt I,o