Page:Fur and the Fur Trade.djvu/17

Rh the pelt with pure butter or sweet oil, trampling them in tubs filled with fine hardwood sawdust at about blood heat, drawing the pelt over a sharp knife to remove every particle of flesh, and finally trampling them again in clean sawdust. The pelt thus becomes soft and pliable like the fine kid used for gloves. They are then ready for the furrier, who assorts the skins as to colour and overhair, and cuts them in various ways to bring them to the pattern of the article required. Having been sewed together with a close, fine overseam, the article is damped, and stretched upon a smooth pine board after a pattern marked, then nailed along its edges and left to dry. After removal from the board the article is trimmed, and softened by rubbing, and is the ready for the liner. The skill of the furrier lies in the taste exhibited in the arrangement of the furs, and in the economy of use of material.

Dyeing.—Furs are dyed in a variety of ways to make them uniform in colour, and adapt them to the fashion and taste of the time. Ordinarily this is a cheap and ready process, and only becomes an art when employed upon fine skins, from which the overhair has been first removed by plucking, leaving the fur alone to receive the dye-stuff. Among these are the skins of the musk rat, beaver, otter, and especially the fur seal; the last has received very careful attention, as its entire value depends upon the perfection and success of the process. Unprime fur seals part with their overhair very reluctantly, while the seasoned skins are very readily unhaired, leaving the fur in all its smoothness; thus the best grades are likely to be very good, while the rest rank only from ordinary to very common. A subsequent process is the removal of all grease from the fur, which is effected by repeated washings in softened water; if this is imperfectly done, the colour will be uneven and not permanent. The final work is to prepare a dye of suitable strength, and apply it in a suitable way, to infuse the colouring matters into the fur, without suffering too much of it to reach the pelt, whereby its durability might be ruined. London claims to have accomplished this for the sealskin in a manner that distances all competition; and it certainly enjoys a wide popularity, as well as the substantial fruits of the sale of its production of coloured seals. But America also has is successful dyers of seals, one of the most important of the results they have achieved, being the giving of the fur seal a fine brown colour, without injuring or burning the fur, while leaving the pelt soft, light, and durable.