But here is the main part of the clipping, well worth reading: 

There is something novel about a ranch which consists of spaces covering 150 feet of ground.  Chappell, now president of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, Nova Scotia, owns seventy pairs of silver black foxes, and his ranch is split up into small inclosures of that size, covered with wire on four sides, the wire being buried four feet under ground, attached to a concrete base, and turned in several feet.  The silver black fox tries to root its way to freedom, and this is the way the breeder prevents his escape.

When the foxes mate we also mate a pair of black cats of the ordinary domestic variety.  As soon as the young are born, we take the fox pups away from the mother fox, and the kittens away from the mother cat, and make the cat foster-mother to the fox cubs.  In this way we are able to rear a more domesticated breed of foxes.

For twenty years this business of raising foxes of the silver black species was really kept under cover, because of its great possibilities for making big money.  With the last four or five years the business has become organized, and today many millions of dollars are invested in it.

The last lot of animals slaughtered was in 1910.  There were forty-three pelts sent to London at that time.  They brought as high as $3,800, the average fetching $1,500.  Silver black fox is the rarest fur utilized by man.  The Russian sable, otter, and South Sea seal are practically eliminated for commercial purposes, due to international laws which prohibit the killing of these animals for the next ten or fifteen years, so as to give them a chance to increase.

Only 800 pairs of live foxes were placed on sale last year.  Fewer than 50 of that number were killed and their fur sold.  The rest went for breeding purposes, because fur farms are starting up in many favorable places.  The men who raise silver foxes on Prince Edward Island know the game.  They started in it as boys many years ago.

“In the provinces of Prince Edward, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, men and women interested in breeding foxes have been made wealthy.  They were poor people ten years ago.  Today they live in town houses, own their own automobiles, and yet continue to give the strictest attention to all the details connected with their singular farming industry.”

Obed was extremely modest in what he told concerning his own small beginning.  Max, having also read in one of the clippings that a pair of gilt-edged silver black foxes were worth all the way up to $30,000, was, of course, doubly curious to learn whether those with which Obed started could be the genuine article, and if so, how had he managed to obtain them.

It seemed to be only a game in which rich persons could enter.  Obed understood just what must be passing in the mind of the other, and at the first opportunity he hastened to explain.