essary. The most common dressing consists
of equal parts of rock salt and alum dissolved in water. Into this
a sufficient amount of coarse flour or wheat bran is stirred to give
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the mixture the consistency of batter, after which it is spread
thickly over the skin and allowed to dry.

It is afterwards scraped off, and in some cases a second application
is made. This preparation is much used in dressing beaver, otter,
mink and muskrat skins, but as many of our most successful and
experienced trappers do without it, we fail to see the advantage of
using it, as it is only an extra trouble. The simplest and surest
way is to stretch the skin and to submit it to a gradual process
of natural drying without any artificial heat or application of
astringents to hasten the result.

A very common mode of stretching skins consists in tacking them to
a board, with the fur inwards, and allowing them to dry as already
described.

This method does very well for small skins, but for general purposes
the "stretchers" are the only means by which a pelt may be properly
cured and prepared.

STRETCHERS.

The board stretcher is the simplest form and is in most common use
among trappers for the smaller animals. These stretchers are of
two kinds, the plain and the wedged. The plain stretcher consists
of a piece of board a quarter of an inch in thickness, about eighteen
inches long and six inches in width. One end of this board is rounded
off, as seen in our illustration, and the sides should also be
whittled and smoothed to a blunt edge.

[Illustration]

The board stretchers are used only for those skins which are taken
off whole, that is, as described in the chapter on the otter. The
skin should be drawn tightly over the blunt end of the board, and
its edges either caught in notches cut in the edges of the square
end or secured by a few tacks. This stretcher is particularly
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adapted to the skins of muskrats, minks and animals of a like size.
They are known in New England as "shingle stretchers," and are much
to be recommended on account of their lightness and the ease with
which they can be made and carried.

The wedge stretcher is rather more elaborate than the foregoing,
and is said to be an improvement.

[Illustration]

The first requisite is a board of about three-eighths of an inch in
thickness, two feet or more in length, and three and a half inches
at one end tapering to the width of two inches at t