HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1952-01-17, Page 7Something About That
Mink Coat of Yours....
The annual mink catch is some-
where around 3.5 or 4 million,
About 10 per cent of them normal-
ly come from Ru• ssia; a few thou-
sand . skins are imported from
Scandinavia, and all the rest are
trapped or raised in the United
States (especially in the Great
Lakes area), Alaska and Canada,.
The total value of their pelts is
about $80 million a year—as much
as or more than the valtie of: tall
other furs in the ;annual catch.
During the last couple; of decades,
.women's interest in ,furs has conte
to rest so passionately - and so
single-mindedly on the pelt of the
Mustela visors that •other furs leave
them literally cold.
The. popularity of mink isn't hard
to understand, It has a good many
things in its favor, including its
striking luster and soft texture, its
durability and its pliability, which
makes for easy, slender -lined de-
sign.,
It also has female psychology, or
snobbery, on its side. Costing from
$32,000 all the way •tip to $40,000
for a coat, and $500 to several
thousand for a stole, cape or jacket,
mink is traditionally associated
with class. wealth and luxury —
things which women like to be,as-
sociated with, themselves. In the
last ten years or so there has been
a lot of money around to buy
mink with, but in the case of most
people 'hot 'quite enough. Perhaps
twelve • to fifteen thousand new
mink coats come into the market
every year, along with fifteen to
twenty thousand new jackets, capes
and' stoles. 'tined a"mink lasts a
good five ,years, there must be
around 150,000 mink garments• in
circulation at any given time. That
takes care of practically every
America woman who can possibly •
- pay for mink, but only a fraction
of those who want it writes John
Sharnik in The New York Times.
Minks are of two general types,
both expensive. The wild stink,.
which nests in burrows along the
banks of streams and feeds on
worms, crayfish,' birds and other-
animals—some considerably larger
than itself—is a rich,. dark brown
in color, with some white on its
jaws and underbelly. The ranch
niink, whose diet consists of such
relatively effete dishes as chicken
heads, chopped horsemeat and vi-
tamin -enriched cereals, is bred
both in the standard brown and in
a :wide range of color mutations.
The catalogue of mutation mink
colors comprises a whole strange
vocabulary. in -itself. It runs from
Starlight (which means almost
shack) .through Aleutian (blue) and
Breath of Spring (tan) to White
(white).
In comparison with, the price of
other animals, the valise of a mink
pelt in any of these colors is
:nough to make a customer's
;uardfur stand or end. A Persian
ainb, which rates as a pretty good
meat in stock, feed and equipment
—pens, fences and' so on—it takes
a good deal of educated labor to
bred healthy minks of the desired
colors, One man can take care of
about 400 minks, but it takes at
least a couple of thousand animals
to make a going business. Muta•
tions are developed only after
painstaking studies of mink gene-
tics and at the expense of experi-
mentation that may involve sub-
stantial losses ofanimals before
the breed is perfected.
When they get to be a year old
and ripe for the wearing, minks are
done in, usually in a gas chamber,
which causes them no pain and
leaves tl e pelts unscarred. Then
they are skinned and the skins
salted, later to be dressed' (that is,
cured and softened) and cleaned
(by sawdust in a revolving drum).
Either raw or dressed, the pelts
go to the auction market, where
they are sold in matched bundles
of enough skins for a coat, a jacket
or two or three stoles. Each bun-
dle is 60'. per cent male skins -
relatively large and toughg,, to be
used for the 'body of the coat—and
40 per cent female—smaller and
more fragile, to be used for collars.
cuffs and trine.
All but a small percentage of
the mink coats produced in the
United States are manufactured in
the New Yorkµfur district, a kind
of brick -walled, glass -fronted jun-
gle in Manhattan's West Twenties
and Thirties. The process is a la-
borious and costly one. Unlike
other animal skins, which are
merely sewn together according to
the pattern' of the coat, mink is
"let Out."
That is, each pelt of about 6
by 2V inches is cut diagonally into
dozens of strips'' only a couple of
inches long and a, fraction of an.
inch wide, and these are sewn to-
gether into pieces a couple of •
inches wide and as long as the fin=
ished garment—anywhere froin 46.
to 50 inches in the case of a coat:
and finally the long pieces are
sewn together according to the
pattern and nailed to a large board
to set.
It has tobe done this way be-'
cause the hairs on the original
pelt thoughtlessly vary _ from
snout to tail and grutzen (or back)
to belly—in sparseness, in thick-
ness and, in color. But even more
importantly, it is because the whole
'pelt is so short in other words,
because there just isn't enough
mink on - a mink. Without letting
out, a mink coat would look rel-
atively splotchy.
In the case of another fur -bear-
ing anin•al-saya beaver, which is
comparatively huge, tough -skinned
and low -valued -such a process
would be neither necessary, easily
performed nor worth while. But
in the case of the mink, it is highly
rewarding, alike to the pelt, the
tddition to most woni..n s ward
'obes, is worth something between
2 and $20, and it takes just
twenty-four to thirty skins . for a
:oat, A beaver is worth about $20
:o $45, and thirteen cif gthem equal
one coat A red f61, which used
:o bring a price of a,6 it 30 when
it was in fashion, is `Q worth''' just"
about 25 cents today, and is gen-
erally caught for, the sake of
thickens rather than women.
On the other hand';'.i',idt:'k—tak-
Mg anywhere from srfrty 've to a
hundred skins per coat—co:,ts be-
tween $6. and $60 per pelt; .some,
run ashigh as $80 or. $100, and
Sapphire mutation pe 1 t s havt
brought as much as $380.
The high ' cost of mink starts
back on the ranch. The mink is a
fairly Prolific little beast and a
rather hardy one. It produces a
litter of about Ave or six once a
year,, along about April or May,
and, apart from the risks of being
frightened to death or eaten by a
neurotic mother, each little mink
vas a good clutece .of surviving the
,ear required to grow a pelt on it.
But in addition to the invest.
wearer and the furrier. The letting•,
out process is what gives a mink
coats its pattern of long, etcen, ius-
trorts striping and its soft, flatter-
ing lines. Since the process con-
sumes a good $600 or $700 worth of
labor —as aga'nst about $100 for
an average Persian lamb coat, for
instance --it is also the thing that
give the final boort to' the price
of a mink coat.
Although fur is at least as sus-
ceptible as bats and architecture
to the vagaries of taste and the
cycles of fashion, people in the
fur trade doubt strongly that mink
might one day go the way of the
red fox or the monkey pelt. For
one thing, it has the advantage of
an intrinsic high cost of produc-
tion, which keeps it tantalizingly
out of reach of most women. "Sable
and chinchilla, the only furs, that
are generally more expensive than
mink nowadays, are so -only be.-
cause
e•cause they haven't yet been bred
successfully in large numbers on -
this continent; but their pelts are
regarded as less lustrous, less
workable and therefore, less flat-
tering to the wearer,
Light -'leaded Lady—In his London studio, sculptor Arthur Fleisch-
mann puts the finishing touches to his "Symbol of Light," carved
from the largest block of transparent plastic ever manufactured.
The three -foot -high head will be installed in a new building of a
Dutch electric light bulb company to mark its 60th' anniversary.
A word of caution to poultrymen
was recently issued by .a noted ex-
pert, who warns that too much
grain may lower hatchability.
o * • ,,
Most breeder mashes are. , de•
-
signed to be fed on a 50-50 basis
with grain. But wlten.sciatch grain
is fed free - choice with a ntasii
containing 20 per cent protein,
some birds will eat as much as 70
per cent or more scratch, he says.
Yet many of the vitamins and min-
erals. (and most of the protein) re-
quired for' the chick embryo• to de--
vetop and. hatch into. a vigorous
chick are in the .mash, not in the"
scratch feed. This expert recons
mends ,starting hens on breeder
`mash a month before hatching
eggs are saved.
* * :
Don't add too many nudes,' is
another -rule which comes in handy
'with the breeding flock. Experi-
ments indicate that 5 males per
100 hens will produce highly fer-
tile White Leghorn hatching eggs
when the male birds are placed in
the flock 'two weeks before eggs
are saved. With heavier breeds,
six or seven males are •euotigh.
* 0 0
Storage is the. big question as
far as hatchability is concerned,
once the fertile eggs. are produced.
Such eggs do not stand up in star-,
age as well as infe rtilc eggs and
so you 1 ave to keep a close watch
to see that storage temperatures
keep within the 50 to 60 degree
range and that relative humidity
stays in the 80 to 90 per cent
bracket. Also, hatchability falls ,oil
rapidly whets eggs are .tared
longer than a week—and you can
count on higher chick mortality
'burning eggs daily is a must tin
tl.ose stored longer than one neck
--those to be set in less thati a
week do not require turning at
all. A simple turning method is to
lean the filled egg cases at a 45 -
degree angle against the storage
room wall and reverse ends of the
cases daily, All eggs, hatching or
market bound, should be placed iu
the case with the small end down.
0 0
Clean eggs give. hest hatch-
ability, but soiled . hatching eggs
may be cleaned by hand buffing
with sandpaper or by washing.
For • washing. clean, warm water
should be used—water warmer
than egg temperature. To cut need
for any washing, collect eggs at
(cast three times daily.
• W A:
Uniform color is desirable in
hatching eggs, just as it is in mar-
ket eggs. Hatching eggs front
White Leghorni and other' white -
shelled breeds should be chalk
white, since the tendency to lay
tinted eggs may be inherited.
* * *
Egg size also is related to hatch-
ability. Experts recommend choos-
ing 1.atching eggs that ,are aver-
age size for the flock, avoiding
those that are considerably larger
or smaller.
x• 1' 0
'Slini milk combined with farm -
grown grains and cod-liver oil
'Made an 'efficient ration for laying
heirs its experiments at a well
known Agr:ctiltural College: The
ration was satisfactory for egg
production, fertility and hatch-
ability. It compared well with a
ration made of egg -laying and
' breeding mashes and nixed grain.
„. * 0
The milk -grain ration was made
up of 50 per cent corn, 25 per cent
wheat, 25 per cent oats to which
•400D' -200A cod-liver oil bad been
added at the rate of nine pounds
per ton of grain --with skim milk
fed free choice. The birds received
no water in order to force thein
to drink a sufficient amount of
mill:. * * *
l %heir Compared with a ration
composed of the same grain mix-
ture without the cod-liver oil, plus
layer -breeder mash fed free choice,
there was little go choose in results
* *
Average production of Single
Comb White l.eghorns over a two-
year period was 53.7 per cent on
the milk -grain ration: For the
mash -grain ration, the production
was 55.5 per cent. Fertility for the
milk -grain ration %sus 92.6 per cent
and the hatchability was 85.5 pet
cent of all fertile eggs. For the
mast. -grain ration, fertility was 00.2
per cent and hatchability 75 7 per
cent.
Crochet Darning
Crocheting is a fascinating- pas-
time, while laboriously weaving
darning stitches back and forth is
prosy work to most women: so
why not crochet patches into
sweaters. hosiery, or "any knitted
article, It takes less time, and the
result is neater than cirl er darning
or patching.
With a large -size steel hook,
hook into the hole along the long-
est edge, using single crochet
stitch. Into the single crochet.
Work double croclet stitches back
and forth, fastening into the edge
• of the garment each time. This is
an especiall} good way to repair
large holes in sweaters.
New Life For An old Name,
Libya Has A Lengthy History
The United Kingdom of Libya,
formally set us recently, cuts a
very respectable cantle out of North
Africa, but it is only a patch on the
map of the original Libya. On the
map of the world according to Her-
odotus, 440 B.C., everything west
ofd,.Egypt (which was considered a
part of Asia) was Libya. But Libya
was by no means as large as to-
day's Africa, It was cut off well
north of the Equator by the all -
encircling ocean. it was, reported
that a ship had oncuy,sailed from
the Arabian Gulf (tiler;''Red Sea)
through this •ocean a i.d around to
the Pillary_of. Hercules? -Libya then
as now, wal- est1y' lest~rt, .but in
thas"e days t1ae: Ni e ikas thought to.
• rise far 'to. th e west', , attd to' flow
eastward for a thousand iriiles ie
Tore turning• nar,.h below :The es.
It was the '.L•i,;byano" eotutter,(rar• . of
Eui'ope'S„Darinhe. ' •
The uam•e Libya was disc tied
by the Ronians,'.who"first gave the
name of Africa.onl.,to;the country
around Carthage, anti, ,Scipio won
his. title of Af'ar�anas, by subduing
only that �'snralf ^part of the great
continent, Africa Procotisularis was
later extended eastward to include
the coast of modern°:Libya. Diocle-
tian restored the old name when
he was reforming the administra-
tion of the empire and the name
lingered until the whole of North
'Africa was submerged by the Arab
floods of the seventh and eighth
centuries. It was revived by Mus-
solini, who took if as a convenient
symbol of the empire he was trying
to build on the weak foundations
left by the Turks and the famous
Barbary pirates.
Libya, by all accounts, is today
a miserably poor country, even af-
ter thirty years of Italian pioneer-
ing. It has about a million people
scattered over an area of nearly
700,000 square miles. The most
the size of Texas with one-seventh
of the Texas population. The most
revealing statistic in the table of
its resources is the one that lists
90,000 camels an only 70,000 cattle.
Vast open spaces where camels can
live but not cattle," Motor trucks are
now taking the place of the camels,
and in time the dates of the oases
and the olives of the seacoast are
expected to improve the lot of the
free and independent Libyans.
In the days of Herodotus, when
little was known and much was
hearsay and travelers' tales, Libya
was a far more exciting place than
it is today. Here, according to Her-
odutus was the "populous country
of the Nasamones." They used to
hunt wild locusts, dry them in the
sun, grind them up and sprinkle
them on the milk which they drank.
Next to them were the. Psylli, who
marched out into the desert when
their wa_er supply failed and were
all swallowed up in a sand storm.
Near by were the lotus eaters, who
gathered sweet berries which they
ate and made wine of. Then the
Machlyes, who held a yearly festi-
val at which all the maidens of the
tribe were divided into two bands
which fought each other with
stones and staves. Further inland,
beyond the haunts of wild beasts,
dwelt more strange people in oases
where fountains o' meet gNYCCl
water shot up through hillocks of
salt. here were men who had nu
name, others who saw no, dreams
and a tribe whose language sounded
like the squeaking of bats. And so
on to the Atlantes, who shared
their name with the Atlantic sea.
Cyrenaci, Libya's eastern prov-
ince, has a different `background.
Greeks from the island of Thera,'
claiming to be descendants of
Jason's Argonauts, establi. bed a
colony at Cyrene, which 'was flour-
ishing when Iferodottis wrote, It
shared the fate of Egypt .when the
Persians were everywhere advanc-
ing, and later was a part of Alexan-
der's empire. It passed eventually
to the Romans, but kept its Greek
character until it too was blotted
out by the westward march of the
Arab. Retrains at Cyrene of a fine
Creek city have already been par-
tially uncovered ':by English arch-
aeologists. There 'and at Leptis
Magna, near Tripoli, the new Lib-
yan Government inight advance the
cause of world understanding by
encouraging the sear-bh among the
sands for Greek ..and Roman re-
mains, which are known to be con-
siderable. The best hope for the
new kingdom lies in the future,
dimly foreseen by scientists, when
cheap power, perhaps from the sun,
will make .sea water available for
irrigation of the deserts. When
cattle gaze where now only camels
can live the future of Libya should
be bright.
No Joy Ride
A New York Times correspon-
dent has found a lot . of discontent
among American troops stationed
in France. "Most enlisted services"
he says "are bitter because they do
not have the shiny post exchanges,
bowling alleys, and theatres avail-
able in Germany and a friendlier
reception by.the French," He added
that these men are critical also
about the lack of laundries, dry-
cleaning, shoe rewiring facilities
and indoor plumbing,
In commenting on that report
Colliers magazinesays something
that will meet tiiith • wide approval
in Canada as well as the United
States. "It seems to tis that there
niay be something wrong with
army training and indoctrination if
peacetime duty in a country as
civilized as France — even if the
plumbing isn't always so good—is
regarded as something correspond-
ing to banishment in Siberia. Those
men have an important job to do.
They are facing a numerically su-
perior force of tough trained troops
whose leaders hold the wgrld under
constant threat 'of a general-s7ioot-
ing war. The fire in the far east
could break out in Europe any day.
And if that should happen there
would be little time for chocolate
soldering or for bowling alleys.
Perhaps then, it would be well if
American officers impressed upon,
their men a little more of the serr-
iousness of their assignment and
suggest to them that there are prab-
who would gladly change places
ably some men on the line in Korea
with those who are suffering the
hardships and privations of peaceful
life in rural France."
So far there are no Canadian
troops stationed in France but be-
fore this uneasy period in world
history is over we may have theta
there and also in less comfortable
places. That being so it would be
well that they know in advance not
only what to expect but what the
country expects of them. Soldiering
in peace or war is serious business
and there is nothing td be gained
by trying to pretend that it is any-
thing else. —From ' Financial Post.
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By Arthur Pointer
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