WHY NOT FOXES?

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 943, 9 April 1930, Page 1

WHY NOT FOXES?

SUGGESTION FOR BREEDING JN NEW ZEALAND POSSIBILITIES OF PRODUCTION A suggestion that foxes should be imported into New Zealand and bred for the fur trade, was made at a meeting of the Auckland Fur Club on Monday evening. The members of the club, with Mr. Cambie, of the Canadian Fur Company, Auckland, discussed the outlook for fur production, Mr. Cambie submitting an extensive range of furs from various world sources and in various stages of treatment. These conveyed to New Zealand producers some conception of what competition they had to meet. Among the furs that figured in the discussion were Russian hare, Chinese goat, Spanish and Persian lamb, American opossum, Jack rabbit, calf skin, musquash and fox. Mr. Cambie expressed a hope that the production of musquash and fox would be undertaken in New Zealand. Very large quantities of musquash were used, and it was a fur of good wear and great popularity. The fox was in world-wide demand, particularly the silver fox and the cross fox, the value of these in good quality being around £SO eadh. He thought they would thrive well in New Zealand. As to silver fox coney, which the rabbit breeders in Britain had produced, there was, of course, a great difference in wearing quality. Coney furs were displayed in great variety, but all were dyed, or otherwise improved. A popular imitation was sable, indicated by dark brown or yellow colour with broad, black stripe. Apart from the colouring, there were changes produced by shearing (giving an effect suggesting seal or plush), plucking or pulling (giving a similar result but with a softer furless resistent to rain). Much interest was taken in the Chappell furs made from French rabbits by the Chappell firm, which produces over half the world’s coney furs, to the great benefit of the French smallholders. The landed cost of foreign coney furs varied from fifteen pence to five or six shillings each, and these prices must affect the values of the New Zealand Chinchilla. Samples of Auckland-bred Chinchillas were shown by Mr. Heywood and were admitted to be much larger and more beautiful and more distinctive than the imported * coney furs, supplying a rich blue-grey article quite unrepresented in the imported furs artificially coloured. Air. Cambie considered a supply of f New Zealand Chinchilla pelts would at | present receive a warm welcome from ! the public if made up in their ex- ! quisite natural colour, i He advocated their increased pro- , duction and also the musquash and S the rarest kinds of fox.