Part 5

THE HOOP STRETCHER.--The skins of large animals, such as the beaver and the bear, are best dried by spreading them, at full size, in a hoop. For this purpose, a stick of hickory or other flexible wood should be cut, long enough to entirely surround the skin when bent. (If a single stick long enough is not at hand, two smaller ones can be spliced together.) The ends should be brought around, lapped, and tied with a string or a withe of bark. The skin should be taken from the animal by ripping from the lower front teeth to the vent, and peeling around the lips, eyes, and ears, but without ripping up the legs. It should then be placed inside the hoop and fastened at opposite sides, with twine or bark, till all loose parts are taken up, and the whole stretched so that it is nearly round and as tight as a drum-head. When it is dry it may be taken from the hoop, and is ready for packing and transportation.

This is the proper method of treating the skin of the deer. Some prefer it for the wolf and raccoon. In many cases the trapper may take his choice between the hoop and the board method. One or the other methods will be found satisfactory for curing all kinds of skins.

Dressing and Tanning Skins and Furs.

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DRESSING SKINS WITH FUR WOOL ON.--The cheapest and readiest as well as the best method of dressing skins for use with the hair or wool on, is to first scrape off all the fat with a knife rather blunt on the edge, so as not to cut holes into the hide, upon a round smooth log. The log for convenience sake should have a couple of legs in one end, like a tressle; the other end should rest upon the ground.

After the fat is well cleaned off, take the brains of the animal, or the brains of any other recently killed, and work them thoroughly into the hide. This renders the hide pliable. Then to preserve from the ravages of insects scatter on it some powdered alum and a little saltpeter. If the hair side has become greasy, a little weak lye will take it out. Sheep-skins may be dressed in the same way, though the wool should be cleaned with soapsuds before using the brains. Another way, but more expensive, is to use a paste made of the yolk of eggs and whiting instead of brains, working it in the same way, letting it dry and brushing off the whiting. Then add the powdered alum as before. Deer-skins and even small calf-skins are often tawed as the process is called with the hair on for garments. If it is desired to give the deer-skin a yellow color, yellow ocher or chrome yellow may be used in combination with the brains or yolks of eggs and afterwards brushed off.

If it is simply desired to preserve skins until they are sold, it is only necessary to dry them thoroughly. If the weather should be damp and warm, salt the flesh side slightly with fine salt.

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WITHOUT THE WOOL OR HAIR.--Sheep-skin, deer-skin, dog-skin, calf-skin, &c., for gloves, &c., are also tawed, but the hair must be taken off. The skins are first soaked in warm water, scraped on the flesh side to get off fat, and hung in a warm room until they begin to give a slight smell of hartshorn. The wool or fur then comes off rapidly. The hair side should now be thoroughly scraped against the hair. The skin is next soaked two or three weeks in weak lime water, changing the water two or three times. Then they are brought out again, scraped smooth and trimmed. Then rinsed in clean water, then soaked in wheat bran and water for two or three weeks. After this they are well stirred around in pickle of alum, salt and water. Then they are thrown again into the bran and water for two or three days. Then stretched and dried somewhat in a warm room. After this they are soaked in warm water and then worked or trodden on in a trough or pail filled with yolk of eggs, salt, alum, flour and water, beaten to a froth. They are finally stretched and dried in an airy room, and last of all smoothed with a warm smoothing iron. This makes the beautiful leather we see in gloves, military trimmings, &c. The proportions for the egg paste are as follows: 3-1/2 pounds salt, 8 pounds alum, 21 pounds wheat flour and yolks of nine dozen eggs. Make a paste with water, dissolving first the alum and salt. A little of this paste is used as wanted with a great deal of water.

Chamois skin and deer skins not wanted for gloves are similarly treated up to the point of treating with egg paste. Instead of using this process, they are oiled on the hair side with very clean animal oil, rolled into balls and thrown into the trough of a fulling mill, well beaten two or three hours, aired, re-oiled, beaten again and the process repeated a third time. They are then put into a warm room until they begin to give out a decided smell, then scoured in weak lye to take out superfluous grease. Here the intention is merely to get a thick felt-like skin of good color, a nicely grained surface is not required as in gloves. The skins are finally rinsed, wrung out, stretched and dried, and when nearly dry, slightly rub with a smooth, hard, round stick.

These are the fine processes. A dried skin oiled so as to become smooth and pliable will retain the hair or wool a considerable time.

Or it may be made more durable where the color of the flesh side is no object by scraping, washing in soapsuds and then putting directly into the tan pit. For ordinary purposes rabbit, squirrel and other small skins can be efficiently preserved with the hair by the application of powdered alum and fine salt, put on them when fresh, or if not fresh by dampening them first. Squirrel skins when wanted without the hair will tan very well in wheat bran tea, the fat and hair having been previously removed by soaking in lime-water and scraping. Old tea leaves afford tannin enough for small skins, but they give a color not nearly so pleasant as bran. Almost any of the barks afford tannin enough for small skins--willow, pine, poplar, hemlock of course, sumach, etc.

Coloring or Dyeing Skins and Furs.

Furs are dyed by dealers, to suit some fashion, to conceal defects or to pass off inferior furs for better ones.

The best way is to brush the dye over the fur with a good sponge, brushing with the hair. As a matter of course, you can only dye them of a darker color than they are, and retain the handsome lustrous look peculiar to fur. They may be bleached, but the process leaves the fur looking like coarse flax or even hemp.

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BLUE.--Sulphate of indigo, (soluble indigo, sold by all druggists,) is the readiest and best to get a blue with. Furs are never dyed blue for sale, for that would be spoiling a white fur, but sheep-skins are. The skin should be dipped several times in a bath of hot alum water, allowed to drain, and then dipped into a solution of sulphate of indigo and water, with a few drops of sulphuric acid added, this gives a pale blue. Aniline blue is very fine, and dyeing with it is very simple. A solution of the color in water is made, a hot solution, and the skin put in all at once, (if a part of the skin is put in first that part will be darkest, so quick is the absorption of these colors). Fancy sheep-skin mats are colored blue, red, green, and yellow, and have a ready sale when they are new.

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BLACK.--The best black is obtained by first dyeing the skin a blue. Then boil one-quarter pound gall nuts, powdered, and one and one-quarter ounces of logwood, in three gallons of water. If the flesh side is to be blue, while the fur or wool is another, this decoction must be sponged on.

Get the wool or hair thoroughly impregnated with this and then add one-quarter pound copperas to the dye and go over the fur or wool many times with the sponge. The process above given will answer without previous blueing, but the black is not so brilliant. Another “home-made” dye which will answer for dyeing clothes a black, as well as sheep-skins, is this: Just make a bath of eight ounces of bichromate of potash, six ounces alum, four ounces fustic; boil in water enough to cover five pounds of yarn, cloth or a single sheep-skin. Make another bath of four pounds of logwood, four ounces each bar wood and fustic, or eight ounces fustic; same amount of boiling water as last. Stir the goods well around in the first bath, keeping the water hot for an hour; then work it in the second bath the same length of time. Take them and wring them; then, adding one-quarter pound of copperas to the last bath, put the goods in again and give them a good stirring. This is a good black dye for wool goods or furs, but not for silks or cottons.

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RED.--Furs of course are never dyed red, at least in this country. Sheep-skins might be dyed with madder or cochineal, but in the former case, the skin would of necessity be boiled with the dye, as that is necessary in using madder. Cochineal would be expensive and require much working, while as brilliant reds and purples may be got from the aniline colors, dissolved in moderately warm water, the skum taken off, and skin dipped. These colors are the cheapest, too, as they go very far. But always have the wool as free from grease as possible by working in weak hot lye or hot soapsuds.

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YELLOW.--Can be got on sheep-skins with black oak bark, (quercitron bark) old fustic, annotta, and Persian (also called French) berries. The skin should be previously dipped into a hot bath of alum, cream of tartar or spirit of tin, about two ounces to the gallon. About one-half pound of annotta, or a pound of the other articles, are enough for a single skin. If you wish to use fustic, be particular to ask for old fustic, as what is known in the trade as young fustic, is a different article and gives a different color. There is also now an aniline yellow which works like the other colors.

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GREEN.--Dye first blue as explained above, then pass through a yellow dye, until you get the shade required. An alum bath, cream of tartar, or spirits of tin, as above, must be used before the blue is given.

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PRESERVATION OF FURS.--While in use furs should be occasionally combed. When not wanted, dry them first, then let them cool, and mix among them bitter apples from the druggists, in small muslin bags, sewing them in several folds of linen, carefully turned in at the edges and kept from damp. Camphor or pepper used in the same manner, will have a similar effect. Well cleaned furs are much less liable to be attacked by moths, than those affording rich repasts of dried flesh, though no furs are absolutely safe without great watchfulness. Wrapping well in good brown paper and keeping in a tight paper box, are all helps to the preservation of furs. Sunshine and fresh air kill the fur and wool moth grub. Therefore taking out the furs occasionally and airing, sunning and beating them is necessary.

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TO TAN MUSKRAT SKINS WITH THE FUR ON.--First for soaking, to 10 gallons of cold soft water add 8 parts of wheat bran, 1/2 pint of old soap, 1 ounce of borax; by adding 2 ounces of sulphuric acid, the soaking may be done in one-half the time. If the hides have not been salted, add a pint of salt. Green hides should not be soaked more than 8 or 10 hours. Dry ones should soak till very soft.

For tan liquor, to ten gallons warm soft water add 1/2 bushel bran; stir well and let stand in a warm room till it ferments. Then add slowly 2-1/2 pounds sulphuric acid; stir all the while. Muskrat hides should remain in about 4 hours. Then take out and rub with a fleshing knife--an old chopping knife with the edge taken off will do. Then work it over a beam until entirely dry.

Some Additional Valuable Miscellaneous Information Useful Alike to the Hunter, Trapper and Angler.

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HINTS TO TRAPPERS.--The skins of animals trapped are always valued higher than those shot, as shot not only make holes, but frequently plow along the skin, making furrows, as well as shaving off the fur. To realize the utmost for skins they must be taken care of, and also cleaned and prepared properly. Newhouse gives these general rules derived from experience.

1. Be careful to visit your traps often enough, so that the skin will not have time to get tainted.

2. As soon as possible after the animal is dead and dry, attend to the skinning and curing.

3. Scrape off all superfluous flesh and fat, and be careful not to go so deep as to cut the fiber of the skin.

4. Never dry a skin by the fire or in the sun, but in a cool, shady place, sheltered from rain. If you use a barn door for a stretcher (as boys sometimes do), nail the skin on the inside of the door.

5. Never use preparations of any kind in curing skins, nor even wash them in water, but simply stretch and dry them as they are taken from the animal.

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TO DRESS BEAVER SKINS.--You must rip the skin the same as you would a sheep. Stretch it in all ways as much as possible; then it is to be dressed with equal parts of rock salt and alum dissolved in water, and made about as thick as cream, by stirring in coarse flour. This should be spread on nearly half an inch thick, and scraped off when dry, and repeated if one time is not enough. This same process of dressing applies likewise to otter skins.

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TO TRAP QUAIL.--A quail trap may be any kind of coop, supported by a figure 4. The spindle of the figure must either be so made as to hold grain, or, what is better, some grains of wheat or buckwheat are strung over a strong thread with the aid of a needle, and tied to the spindle. Quails and prairie hens easily enter a trap when the ground is covered with snow. At other times it is rather difficult to catch them.

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TO TRAP WILD TURKEY.--A wild turkey trap is made by first digging a ditch; then over one end is built a rude structure of logs, covered at the top.

The structure should not be tight, but, of course, sufficiently close not to let the birds through. Indian corn is scattered about and in the ditch, and inside of the pen. The turkeys follow up corn in the ditch, and emerge from it on the inside. Once there, the silly birds never think of descending into the ditch, but walk round and round the pen, looking through the chinks of the logs for escape that way. To make all sure, the ditch should end about the centre of the pen, and a bridge of sticks, grass and earth should be built over the ditch, just inside of the pen, and close to the logs; otherwise, in going around the bird might step inside the ditch, and once there, it would follow the light and thereby reach the outside of the pen.

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TO CATCH MUSKRATS WITHOUT TRAPS.--It is a mystery to many how muskrats, beavers, and other animals, are able to remain so long under water, apparently without breathing, especially in winter. The way they manage is, they take in a good breath at starting, and then remain under water as long as possible. Then they rise up to the ice and breathe out the air in their lungs, which remains in a bubble against the lower part of the ice.

The water near the ice is highly charged with oxygen, which it readily imparts to the air breathed out. After a time, this air is taken back in the lungs, and the animal again goes under the water, repeating this process from time to time. In this way they can travel almost any distance, and live almost any length of time under the ice. The hunter takes advantage of this habit of the muskrat in the following manner. When the marshes and ponds where the muskrat abounds are first frozen over, and the ice is thin and clear, on striking into their houses with his hatchet, for the purpose of setting his trap, he frequently sees a whole family plunge into the water and swim away under the ice. Following one for some distance, he sees him come up to recover his breath, in the manner above described. After the animal has breathed against the ice, and before he has time to take his bubble in again, the hunter strikes with his hatchet directly over him, and drives him away from his breath. In this case he drowns in swimming a few rods, and the hunter, cutting a hole in the ice, takes him out.

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BLEACHING WOOL ON TANNED PELTS.--Put an old pot or other iron vessel in the bottom of a hogshead, and in the vessel a roll of brimstone. Fasten near the top a stick or two to place the skin on. The wool must be wet when hung on the sticks. Heat an old iron red hot, or take live coals to start the brimstone. When it is burning briskly, cover the hogshead tight to keep the smoke in. If not white enough, repeat the process.

The Esquimaux mode of tanning is very simple, and the material employed the cheapest and cost accessible of any used in the art, viz: the urine of man and beast. The skins are prepared in the fur, and softened and tanned in urine, which is usually kept in tubs in the porches of their huts, for use in dressing deer, seal and other skins. They show great skill in the preparation of whale, seal and deer skins, and these, on the whole, are equal to the best oil skins made in England. It imparts to them firmness and durability, and makes them waterproof. The boots worn by the Esquimaux are generally made from seal or walrus hides, and resist the encroachments of water.

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HAWK AND OWL TRAPS.--To catch hawks or owls, take a pole 20 feet long, to be set a short distance from the house or barn or on the poultry house. Split the top so as to admit the base of a common steel trap, which should be made fast. When both trap and pole are set you may be sure of game of some kind. These birds naturally light on high objects, such as dead branches of trees or tops of stacks, and one should use judgment about the place where he puts the traps. An open field near the chicken yard is probably the best.

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DOMESTIC MANUFACTURE OF FURS.--The skins of raccoons, minks, muskrats, rabbits, foxes, deer, cats, dogs, woodchucks and skunks are all valuable. Handsome robes may be made from the skins of the last two animals, and the writer has seen fur coats made from the skins of woodchucks, well tanned, dyed and trimmed, which were elegant as well as comfortable, and no one but a connoisseur would be able to guess their origin. Of the finer and nicer furs, beautiful collars, muffs, cuffs, caps, gloves and trimmings may be made with a little ingenuity and perseverance; and who would not feel a greater satisfaction in wearing a nice article, from the fact that it was something of their own manufacture--a product of their own taste and genius?

Very handsome floor-mats are made by tanning sheep pelts and dyeing them some bright color, which is done with very little trouble; the art of dyeing is now so familiar to almost every household. Furs may be dyed as easily as woolen goods, notwithstanding the impression that it is an art known only to the trade. Any dye that will color woolens will also dye furs, only care must be taken not to have the dye too hot, or the texture of the skin will be injured.

The mode of tanning usually followed by city furriers is to rub the skins well with rancid butter, then tread them thoroughly in a tub or vat, after which a large quantity of sawdust is mixed with them, and the process of treading continued until all the grease is absorbed, when they are finished off by beating, working and rubbing with chalk and potter’s clay, whipping and brushing. An old trapper practiced this method with small skins, first washing with a suds of soap and sal-soda to free them from grease, then rinsing in clear water to cleanse them from the suds, then rubbing as dry as possible, after which they were put in a mixture of two ounces of salt to a quart of water, added to three quarts of milk or bran-water containing one ounce of best sulphuric acid, and stirred briskly for forty or fifty minutes; from this they are taken dripping into a strong solution of sal-soda and stirred till they will no longer foam; they are then hung to dry, when they are very soft and pliable.

A very good and simple process in use among farmers is to sprinkle the flesh side, after scraping it well, with equal parts of pulverized alum and salt, or washing it well with a strong solution of the same, then folding the flesh side together and rolling it compactly, in which state it should remain for eight or ten days; then it is opened, sprinkled with bran or sawdust to absorb the moisture, and rolled up again, and after remaining twenty-four hours, the process is completed by a thorough rubbing and manipulation, on which the pliability depends. Skins, when taken off, should be freed from grease or flesh by thorough scraping, when they may be dried, and left to await the leisure of the owner. Previous to tanning they must be well soaked and wrung dry.

It is no extravagance to assert that every farmer’s family may furnish their own fur collars, gloves, robes, and other articles of dress and ornament, with trifling expense, from the resources within their own reach; but from want of more knowledge on the subject valuable skins are wasted or disposed of for a mere fraction of their real value, and articles of apparel that should be made from them are bought at extravagant prices of fur dealers.

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INDIAN MODE OF TANNING BUFFALO SKINS.--The hard and incessant labor that is necessary to properly “Indian tan” a robe is not easily to realize unless one may see the work go on day by day from the first step, which is to spread out the pelt or undressed hide upon the ground, where it is pinned fast by means of wooden pins driven through little cuts in the edge of the robe into the earth. The flesh side of the robe, being uppermost, is then worked over by two and sometimes three squaws. The tools used are very rude, some being simply provided with sharp stones or buffalo bones. Others, more wealthy, have a something that much resembles a drawing-knife or shave of the cooper. The work in hand is to free the hide from every particle of flesh, and to reduce the thickness of the robe nearly one half, and sometimes even more.

This fleshing, as it is termed, having been thoroughly accomplished, the hide is thoroughly moistened with water in which the buffalo brains have been steeped. For ten days the hide is kept damp with this brain water. Once each day the hide is taken up and every portion of it rubbed and re-rubbed by the squaws, who do not have recourse to anything like a rubbing-board, but use their hands until it would seem as if the skin would soon be worn off. There seems to be no definite rule as to the length of time which the robe shall occupy in curing. The squaw labors until the hide becomes a robe, which may require the work of one week or two, sometimes even more; but I think that ten days may be considered as the average time which it takes to properly cure a robe.

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TO DRESS DEER SKINS.--Put the skin into the liquid while warm, viz: eight quarts rain water to one pint soft soap. Warm it. Then punch the hide, or work it with a soft stick, and let it lay one day. It is then to be taken out and wrung--rolled between two logs--or even a wringing machine will be better. Then stretch it until it is dry, in the sun is best, or by a hot fire. Then oil it thoroughly with any oil convenient.

It should then be treated to the same bath of suds (heated quite warm), and lay another day. Then pull it out and dry as before. Any oil will do, but good fresh butter is better than anything else. When the skin is dry rub it with ochre, which will give it a splendid yellow color.