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.
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 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.
The first requisite is a board of about three-eighths of an inch in
