Stakes should be driven close to the fence to keep them from burrowing out.

They are naturally clean animals, and with careful attention are free from disease.  Mr. Stevens reports that in his two years’ experience he has had twenty to thirty foxes and lost none by disease, while Mr. Norton, with five years’ experience, carrying thirty to forty, reports that one to two die each year.

They breed as well in captivity as in their wild state, usually bringing forth a litter of six or seven in the spring.  These breed the following spring and their fur is ready for market the following December.  And now breeders sell fine stock to other breeders who are entering the industry, sometimes getting three to four hundred dollars per pair.  Mr. Seton remarks, “I am satisfied that any man who has made a success of hens can make a success of foxes, with this advantage for the latter a fox requires no more space or care than a hen, but is worth twenty times as much, and so gives a chance for returns twenty times as large.”

This is an infant industry, but if others can get the same results, it will pay handsomely.  To get the best furs, however, requires a district where the winters are cold and long.

There are a few skunk farms in the West.  It is said that the scent gland can be taken out, though that is not necessary, and that the farms do well.  Their oil is also said to be valuable.  But while skunks are so common there cannot be much in breeding them.

If your fancy goes to “critters” rather than crops it is much better to raise game birds.  Wild turkeys raised under a hen or in an incubator and made pretty tame (if too tame they do not thrive so well in a small area), “wild” ducks, grouse, partridges, quails, even wood ducks which build their nests in trees are no longer experiments.

All the common enemies you have to contend against are foxes, dogs, cats, rats, mink, skunks, hawks, owls, crows, frogs, turtles, snakes, poachers, game legislators, and disease.

It has been calculated that one pair of quails and its progeny would produce five or six million birds in eight years if there were no losses.  But so would chickens; and probably you will not get that many.

All about these game birds is set forth in an advertising booklet called, “Game Farming” of the Hercules Powder Co., which has offices in a dozen cities, so we need not enlarge.

CHAPTER XVII

WHERE TO GO

Intensive cultivation, raising a big crop on little land, can be carried on most profitably near areas of dense population; for perishable products, like fruits and vegetables, can be best marketed near the consumer.  The limit for delivery by auto is about fifteen to twenty miles, and then only if roads are good; if the land selected lies on the line of a railroad which gives equal terms to way freight and to through