how can it be expected that the
supply will last?

That skunk, mink and muskrat do well in settled sections, there is no
question, but since their pelts are so valuable, more trappers are after
them than ever before. In addition, magazines and books on the subject
are more plentiful than in former years, so that the inexperienced
hunter and trapper has far better success than in past years.

There is always a cash market for raw furs and since the discovery of
America, raw furs have been an important article of commerce. In the
early days, beaver was the leading article and even at this date
thousands of skins are secured annually by the professional trapper in
the swamps of the south and along the streams and lakes of the north.
Scattered thruout the South, Rocky Mountain sections, Northern Canada
and parts of the East, are several thousand professional hunters and
trappers whose annual catch amounts to several hundred dollars each. The
aggregate of these men, footing up to perhaps $3,000,000 or $4,000,000.
In the settled sections are tens of thousands of boys and amateur
trappers with here and there a professional. The annual catch of these
foot up to perhaps $6,000,000 to $8,000,000, or double the catch of the
professionals who leave civilization in September and are not seen again
until May or June.

It is this class (boys and amateurs) that secures the greatest
quantities of fur and as the number of trappers is so large and the
grounds necessarily limited, here is where the animals are rapidly
decreasing and at the present rate are in danger of extermination. In
some sections there has been a wonderful falling off in the catch of
late years, altho the number of trappers is larger.

An industry paying the hunter and trapper probably $15,000,000 yearly is
one that should receive attention. At the present rate of extermination,
some of the fur bearers are destined to soon follow in the wake of the
buffalo. The demand for furs is increasing as the population of the
world is becoming more and more. Again furs are being put to more uses
than ever. While the demand for furs are increasing, what of the supply?
The day, perhaps, is not far in the distance when the demand will call
for two or three times as many furs as today. Where are they to come
from? The natural supply is surely diminishing.

The matter of 'Supply and Demand' is one that there is considerable
difference of opinion upon. Hunters and trappers, as a r