IkXU
m
\_» ‘Bfk 2? JtcfcXfc '
Four silver foxes in one of the breeding pens. Note their attitude of tenseness and suspicion as this picture was
being taken.
Silver Fox Farm
There actually is sueh a thing hi North Car¬
olina. It is located near Highlands and is
now in its third year of operation, with 125
of the foxes being ktkpt on the farm.
THE information about Mr. Mc¬
Carty and bin foxes vu given us
in
и
letter from Mr. Evelyn Harris,
of Atlanta, an official of the Southern
liell Telephone Company.
"I have been spending quite some
time,” wrote Mr. Harris, "in the
mountains at Highlands, N. C., and
I ran across a story which I think
may ho of some interest to you. It has
to do with a Silver Fox Farm which
recently ha* been established by Mr.
S. L. McCarty. The manner in which
the foxes are raised, bred and the
skins marketed is fairly well known,
hut from your standpoint the interest
would lie in the fact that this is one
of the very few such farms in the
country, and that the climate of
Western North Carolina, particularly
ib<- section in which this farm is locat¬
'd. is more ideal for this purpose
than in any other part of the coun¬
try.”
A Visit to the Farm
First time we ever had heard of a
Silver Fox Farm in North Carolina,
hut lust Thursday we were in High¬
lands so we made some inquiries and
made our way out to Mr. McCarty’s
lace — it’s known as the Highlands
ilver Fox Farm and is about three
miles from town.
We found Mr. McCarty, Mrs. Mc¬
Carty, two McCarty children ami 125
silver foxes, as well as a number of
other interesting items. We also ob¬
tained a lot of information about sil¬
ver foxes, a subject concerning which
we had been woefully ignorant in the
past. Our first question almost dis¬
couraged Mr. McCarty from giving
us any further information.
"How many times a year,” we asked
him, "can you skin one of these foxes?”
"You only skin n fox once,” was
his dignified reply. "When you get
ready to skin him. you first give the
animal an injection of strychnine,
which kills him, and then von remove
the skin.”
Mr. McCarty used to live in Greens¬
boro. At one time he was employed
with the Eastern Air Lines. For sev¬
eral years he has interested himself
in silver-fox production and in ob¬
taining information about how to raise
them. Something over two years ago
he bought the farm near Highlands.
He has been through two breeding sea¬
sons and is now starting on his third,
lie began with 1t! foxes and now lias
125. Thus far he hasn’t killed off any,
because he has been wanting to breed
others as quickly as possible. Natur¬
ally, if he were to kill them off too
fast, his production would bo cur¬
tailed considerably.
Farthest-South Farm
"Thi*," he told u.. "is the farthet-
south farm in the country. There's
another one in Virginia; also some in
Wisconsin, and several more in other
parts of the country. Canada also
raises a lot of silver foxes and we im¬
port some from abroad. Used to be
that there was a heavy import duty
on fox skins and we imported only
around .*10,000 skins a year. Hut the
duty has been reduced, so now we ini-
Ct around 300,000 skins. That has
pod to hold down the market price
to some extent.”
"How much will a silver-fox skin
bring on the market ?” we asked.
"There’s a wide difference in the
