You should not fail to remove all the fat and flesh from the skin immediately after the skin is on the board. If a skin is wet when taken from the animal it should be drawn lightly on a board until the fur is quite dry. Then turn the skin flesh side out and stretch. * * * Beginning at the left, dimensions and skins stretched on the various boards are given: No. 1. Mink board, length 28 inches and 4 wide. No. 2. Mink board, length 28 inches and 3 1/2 wide. No. 3. Weasel board length 20 inches and 2 1/2 wide. No. 4. Muskrat board, length 21 inches and 6 inches wide. No. 5. Opossum board, (small), length 20 inches and 6 1/2 inches wide. No. 6. Skunk or opossum, (medium), length 28 inches and 7 inches wide. No. 7. Skunk and opossum, (large), length 28 inches and 8 inches wide. [Illustration: SIZE OF STRETCHING BOARDS.] Old and experienced hunters and trappers know about the shape and size to make the various stretching boards for the fur bearers, but for the guidance of beginners and those who are careless about stretching pelts, the above description is especially meant. Trappers in Southern sections will no doubt find the boards as described here too large for most of their skunk. In the Northeast the mink boards will also be too large, but for this section (Ohio), they are about correct. The general shape of the boards can be seen from the illustration. * * * One of the best ways, writes a Minnesota trapper, to take off the skin of an animal is by cutting the skin around the hind legs or feet, and then slitting the skin down inside the hind legs to the body joining the two slits between the hind legs, then remove the skin on the tail by pushing up the thumb nail, or a thin flat piece of wood against the bone of the tail and draw off the skin. Now commence to draw the body of the animal through the slit already made without enlarging it, drawing the skin over itself, the fur side within. When the forefeet are reached, cut the skin away from them at the wrists, and then skin over the head until the mouth is reached when the skin should be finally removed at the lips. One thing to be borne in mind when stretching a skin to dry, is that it must be drawn tight; another, that it must be stretched in a place where neither the heat of a fire or that of the sun will reach it too strongly, and it should not be washed. Large skins may be nailed on a wall of a shed or barn.