Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1883 — The Southern 'Gator. [ARTICLE]

The Southern 'Gator.

Six thousand baby alligators are sold in Florida every year, and the amount of ivory, number of skins and quantity of oil obtained from the older members of the Saurian family are sufficient to entitle them to a high place among the products of the State. The hunters sell young ’gators at $25 per hundred, and the dealers from 75 eta. to $1 each. Live alligators two years old represent to the captor 50 cents each, and to the dealer from $2 to $5, as the season of travel is at its height or far advanced. A ten-foot alligator is worth $lO, and one fourteen feet long $25 to the hunter,while the dealer charges twice or three times that price. The eggs are worth to the hunter 50 cents per dozen, and to the dealer 25 cents each. /The dead alligator is quite as valuable as the live one, for a specimen nine feet long and ’reasonably fat will net both branches of the trade as follows: Hunter. Dealer. OU $5 50 |7 50 Skin 1 00 4 00 Head 10 00 25 00 Total |ls 5) $36 50 The value of the head is ascertained by the number and size ot the teeth. Dealers mount especially fine specimens of the skull, but the greater number have no other value than that of the ivory they ntain.