Identifier: furfarmingincana00cana (find matches)
Title: Fur-farming in Canada
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Canada. Commission of Conservation. Committee on Fisheries, Game and Fur-bearing Animals Jones, J. Walter
Subjects: Fur-bearing animals
Publisher: Ottawa, The Mortimer Co.
Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: NCSU Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
depletion of the species in some sections. Because of the ease of stocking a marsh and feeding the rat, it isfeasible for owners to take charge of their marshes, control the numberkilled, improve the housing and nesting conditions and supply foodby planting suitable crops and feeding vegetables and fruits. In the salt marshes around Delaware and Chesapeake bays, on theAtlantic coast of the United States, a good quality of rat is producedand the marshes are protected by the owners. The ratting privilegesare rented, usually for one halt of the catch. Use is made of the fur,the flesh and the musk bags. The flesh, known as marsh hare or marshrabbit, is sold in large quantities on the Baltimore, Philadelphia, Nor-folk and Washington markets and is said to be very agreeable in thefall and early winter, but to be unfit for food in the spring becauseof the musky flavour. The Indians consider it a splendid dish. In the ♦For further information wi<h respect to the muskrat see Appendix VI.
Text Appearing After Image:
MUSKRAT AND BEAVER 111 proper season, canning companies will purchase as much as can beput up. It is said that the best salt marshes will furnish 50 rats a year peracre. They may be fenced with 1^-inch mesh whe, 5 feet wide, byburying it a foot on dry land and deeper near water area. Not morethan 50 rat houses, or pairs, should be kept on an acre. It is necessaryto have an area of water which does not freeze to the bottom. This,in many cases, could be secured by dredging and the mud thrown upwould be used by the rats for making homes. Wild rice, water lilies,cat-tails, and various roots, are their natural food. Carrots, beets,turnips, apples, pumpkins and other cheap vegetables and fruits maybe grown in nearby fields for summer food, or stored in pits for winter.A small quantity of meat may also be fed. The muskrat probably has two litters the first, and three eachsucceeding season, and the first litters bear young in the autumn. Thefirst are born about the middle of May and each litt

Note About Images