good diet was very necessary to produce a good fur. The best foxes were always kept for breeding. The gestation period was 52 days and the litters ranged from one to six pups. They were usually born in April and would be ready to pelt in December. The furs were shipped to Canadian Fur Sales in Montreal, and the best market was Europe until about 1940. When World War II broke out, there was a great decline in prices and also in demand for the pelts, and by 1955 all the ranches in this community were closed. Now in 1983 fox furs are becoming popular again, fox farming is staging a come-back, and there

are a number of ranches operating in Lot 34, but none in Stanhope, the nearest being John Skinner’s in West Covehead.

Mink were also raised in Stanhope during the fox ranching times, by Ray Carr, Wendell Kielly and Will Ross, on a small scale and with

only moderate success; the mink were harder to handle than foxes, and were great escape artists.

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