This shrewd Company never allow their territory to be overtrapped. If the annual return from any well trapped district be less in any year than formerly, they order a less number still to be taken, until the beaver and other fur-bearing animals have time to increase. The income of the company {254} is thus rendered uniform, and their business perpetual.
The nature and annual value of the Hudson Bay Company's business in the territory which they occupy, may be learned from the following table, extracted from Bliss's work on the trade and industry of British America, in 1831:[66]
Skins. No. each £. s. d. £. s. d.
Beaver 126,944 " 1 5 0 158,680 0 0
Muskrat 375,731 " 0 0 6 9,393 5 6
Lynx 58,010 " 0 8 0 23,204 0 0
Wolf 5,947 " 0 8 0 2,378 16 0
Bear 3,850 " 1 0 0 3,850 0 0
Fox 8,765 " 0 10 0 4,382 10 0
Mink 9,298 " 0 2 3 929 16 0
Raccoon 325 " 0 1 6 24 7 6
Tails 2,290 " 0 1 0 114 10 0
Wolverine 1,744 " 0 3 0 261 12 0
Deer 645 " 0 3 0 96 15 0
Weasel 34 " 0 0 6 00 16 0
- -
£203,316 9 0
Some idea may be formed of the net profit of this business, from the facts that the shares of the company's stock, which originally cost £100, are at 100 per cent premium, and that the dividends range from ten per cent upward, and this too while they are creating out of the net proceeds
