Part 4

We conceived the plan of crossing this bird with the Cayuga, with a view of increasing the size, not knowing whether the good or the negative qualities of the two birds would prevail. We were very much pleased with the results of this cross, as it gave us all the good qualities of the Cayuga with the largely increased size of the Rouen. It gave us also a good table bird, the flesh of which was far better flavored than that of the puddle duck. We made the duck business then supplementary to that of growing chickens. Our chicks were hatched out early in the winter in order to secure the high prices. Our ducks during the spring and summer were not marketed until fall. We did not expect those ducks to lay till the first of April, and they did not disappoint us. If anyone had told us that young ducks could be made to lay at four or five months old, and that we could have our young broods out by the thousands at that time, we should have called him insane. We then gave our ducklings free range, and, as a consequence, lost large numbers of them from eating injurious insects, which, in their haste, they did not stop to kill, and paid the penalty with their lives.

Now, the genuine duckling is proverbially stupid. He has an immense faculty for getting himself into trouble, without the first idea as to how he shall get out. As, for instance, we had taken up some old fence-posts one day, and carelessly left the holes (some two feet deep) unfilled. When feeding time came at night we missed many of our little ducklings, and, at the same time, heard a great squeaking, which we could not locate. We finally traced it to the post-holes, which we found nearly full of young ducklings, not much the worse for the adventure. When we look back at the difficulties with which we had to contend, and the losses we sustained in consequence, I often wonder that we were not discouraged. It was blunder after blunder, repeated always with the same results. We had very little idea of the systematic care and regular food required to ensure against loss and enable the young birds to attain a weight in a few weeks which we supposed required almost as many months. We still had the impression that water was essential to the welfare of the birds, both old and young, and that eggs would not be fertile unless copulation took place in the water. So we built a tank for use during the dry season of the year (which held about a hogshead), and cemented it thoroughly.

This tank we laboriously filled with water for the birds to sport in, but it did not work, as it soon became so offensive that we were obliged to renew it at least every three days, so that we soon became tired of it, and once more allowed the ducks the liberty of the swamp. We never obtained more than half of the number of eggs that we now get from our Pekins. About this time the Aylesbury duck came under our notice, and we procured a number of them at once, as they came highly recommended, but they did not meet our expectations. They were a very pretty bird to look at, and their feathers were more valuable, but there the advantage ended, for the strain we obtained was a trifle smaller than the mongrels we had been breeding,--rather more delicate to rear, and, worse than all, we found it almost impossible to pick them. In all our experience before or since we have never seen anything to equal those birds. The tenacity of those feathers was exasperating. Every one was bound to retain its complement of flesh. Of course the birds were so disfigured that the most of them were retained for family use. It was no use to think of scalding them,--that would not only seriously injure the feathers, but would completely spoil the birds for Boston market, as scalded birds are rejected at once and classed with cheap Western fowls.

While going the rounds of Boston market one pleasant June day, shortly after our experience with the Aylesburys, we noticed some fine young birds nicely dressed, that had evidently snow-white plumage. As this was before the advent of iced poultry, we supposed the birds had come from the regions of the far South, and our curiosity was excited. We interviewed the dealer and was surprised to learn that the birds were grown to the north of us, and that they were the Pekin ducks we had heard of for a year or two, but had taken no stock in. Yet here they were in the market, while ours were toddling about at home less than half grown. Here was a revelation. We procured some eggs of this party, at once, and in due time hatched out sixty lively young ducklings. They were tended with the utmost care and not one was lost. We were very much interested in these little fellows, they were so hardy, and you could fairly see them grow. It occurred to me at this time to try and experiment with these ducklings, keep a correct account of all food consumed by them, and ascertain what they cost per pound when ready for market. The average weight was taken from the rejected drakes which we did not need for breeding purposes, and which were culled out and sent to market at ten weeks old. We were very much surprised to find the cost to us (exclusive of the cost of eggs) was about 4-3/4 cents per pound. We could hardly credit our own eyes. The calculation was made again and again with the same result. The same calculation was made a year later on two yards of some three hundred ducklings with a result obtained, when ready for market, of 5-1/4 cents per pound, including cost of eggs.

As I had long since left the paternal abode, and for years had ceased to superintend the establishments of others, and as the following experience will be entirely my own, I shall hereafter use the personal "I". It is needless to say that the figures arrived at from the calculations made of those ducks were startling. What! can I grow ducks in three months as cheaply as I can grow pork in a year, or beef in two years, and then get six times as much per pound for it after it is grown? Yes, if figures tell the truth. Can I afford longer to grow large crops of fruit and vegetables, working early and late, risking frosts and drouths, making a bare livelihood, when with one-tenth part of the labor and capital involved I can grow a crop which drouths and frosts do not injure, and make five times as much? No! I have not had a hog on my farm since I kept a Kemp's spreader to work over the manure, and simply grow fruit and vegetables enough for feathered thieves and home consumption. Another question arose: "What shall I do with my cows?" some sixteen or eighteen in number, bull, young stock, etc.

My Farm.

Now, I had become somewhat proud of my farm, as what man does not who had quadrupled its increase within ten years? I was cutting yearly some two hundred tons of hay on less than half that number of acres, and I knew that if I sold my cows I should, in some way, be obliged to get rid of my hay and that would mean disaster to the farm. There might be no decrease in acres, but there would be a sad diminution in the tons of hay. The result is, I keep cows for my own use. Have built two new barns, each one hundred feet long, the basements of which are utilized for box stalls, accommodating sixty boarding horses. These convert my hay and grain (for which I receive the market price) into manure. This is all I expect and all I get.

A while ago a gentleman from New York caught me hoeing in my onion patch. He expressed his astonishment at the size of the onions. (I now grow two or three hundred bushels yearly to supply my own and neighbors' wants, and just to keep my hand in.) Said he: "Your land seems well adapted to this crop." "Yes, I have some twenty or thirty acres that are level, the soil is easily worked and friable, not troubled much with maggot, and, if properly handled, is about sure of a crop." "Why don't you put it all into onions?" "I cannot afford to." "Why," said he, "if our New York farmers had that land within twenty or thirty miles of New York city it would be worth $1,000 an acre, and they would make it pay twenty-five per cent. of that, too, every year." "Possibly they could, but with one-tenth of the labor and capital employed I can raise ducks enough on one acre to buy all the onions I can raise on ten. If I am going to increase my capital and labor in any direction I should put it into ducks, not onions." He acknowledged that perhaps I was right, but at the same time thought it was poor economy to grow nothing but hay on such land as that.

The Muscovy Duck.

The Muscovy duck as its name implies is a denizen of the Mediterranean and is a beautiful bird, quiet and inoffensive in its habits, but cannot compare with the Pekin either in fecundity or in market value. It cannot be induced to lay so early in the season as the Pekin, thus forfeiting the high Spring prices. The eggs require about the same time to incubate as the goose egg (five weeks) and they do not hatch well in an incubator. It is some three weeks longer in maturing than the Pekin and does not command as high a price in the market by two cents per pound. I asked a prominent Boston market man yesterday the reason for it. He said that the flesh was coarser than that of the Pekin while the disparity in the size of the sexes made them very unpopular, for instance, while the drake will dress from eight to ten pounds the duck will rate but four or five pounds. Said he, "I want none of them." There are two varieties of this bird, white and colored.

The Indian Runner Duck.

This bird is of recent introduction, and while it can never be a first-class market bird on account of its small size and dark pins, it has many good points. Its fecundity is wonderful. There is, perhaps, no bird that will excel it as an egg producer for market. Its patrons are enthusiastic in its praise and claim an average yield of one hundred and seventy-five to two hundred eggs per year from each of their birds, but their small size, four to four and a half pounds, together with their dark pins, militates against their value as a market bird. I have always emphasized the point that size as well as fecundity is a necessary adjunct to a profitable market bird. It is no more trouble or risk to grow a large bird than a small one, while the market returns are often double. The large bird will always command at least two or three cents per pound more than a small one, as well as a more ready sale. The Runner is a parti-colored bird.

I was very much pleased with the Pekin ducks. They not only layed some weeks earlier than any other breed I had ever kept, but were precocious, maturing earlier than either of the other breeds, excepting the Cayugas, there being but little difference between the latter and the Pekins, but the Pekins laying some weeks sooner, it gave us control of the early spring markets, which are by far the most profitable of the year.

Disinfecting.

My neighbors had become much interested in the business and often visited me, and were not backward in giving their opinions. They predicted failure for me, giving as reasons that the market would soon be glutted with so much of that kind of stuff, for poultry never could be as good grown in that unnatural way, and that if I kept on growing those ducks in the same yard, year after year, the land would eventually get poisoned, and then disease would clean me out.

But I had thought this thing all over before laying out my yards. I knew that reversing land and cropping it would disinfect it, so a crop of ducks is always followed by a crop of something else; and thus I succeed each season in getting two crops of ducks and two crops of either rye, barley, or oats, so that the land has not been poisoned, and is still growing its complement of large, fat ducks every year, and as I have set it to plum trees, it is beginning to yield fine, luscious plums. Neither is the market glutted, as the demand is far in excess of the supply. The way of growing does not seem to be any objection, as the marketmen are willing to pay me, at least, two to four cents per pound more than they can possibly get for those grown in the natural way.

Perhaps a word here would not be amiss regarding the merits of artificially and naturally-grown poultry for fancy and market purposes. This is a vital question, and it is as well for the public to fully understand this thing now, as well as its origin. There is many a person who has been thoroughly convinced of the great advantages and the economy of the artificial over the natural way of doing it, and who would gladly have started in the business, but was deterred by the prevailing opinion that artificially-grown birds were always deficient in plumage, and could never win at a show, and that the flesh was inferior for table use and could not find a ready sale. It is as well to explode this thing now, and expose its utter fallacy. There is not a shadow of doubt but that much poor poultry has been put upon the market by people who have attempted its culture in the artificial way by growing hundreds of ducks and chicks in the same limited space that they formerly used for a dozen with an old hen.

These, of course, could not be otherwise than poor and the mortality great. Another reason: the fancy business in poultry is fast being overdone. The best breeds are now scattered far and wide over the entire country. There is not the demand for them that there has been, because good birds can be obtained nearer home. Many of our old and well-known fanciers are making frantic but vain efforts to keep their business up to its former standard. They have suffered considerably from competition with artificially-grown birds, and they roundly assert that it is an unnatural method, that the conditions are not right, that it affects the growth and plumage of the bird in such a manner as to preclude its ever taking a first-class premium at our shows.

Now if they can convince the public that naturally grown birds can capture premiums, and they grow all their birds in the natural way, it is easy to see how their trade would be increased.

Now, I never could see how the old hen could impart vigor to her chicks by imparting lice, or how the increased contributions of filth from the old hen, united to that from the chicks, could ever make the conditions more favorable than that from the chicks alone. It can no longer be denied that the artificially-grown fowls are fast coming to the front,--a place which they already occupy in the market. Knapp Bros., Fabius, N. Y., the greatest prize winners on White Leghorns in the country, grow their birds artificially. We could mention many others who are doing equally well. Our own Pekin ducks have, for many generations, been hatched and grown artificially, and today, for size, symmetry, and beauty of plumage they stand unrivaled in North America. They have won first from Canada to the Gulf, and have never been defeated. Three times during the past ten years we have been obliged to enlarge market boxes to accommodate the increased size of our birds; and yet we have bred only from our own stock. A number of times I have procured winning birds at the Pennsylvania and Western State Fairs, with a view to a change of blood, only to cast the birds aside on their arrival here, as I could not breed from them without deteriorating my flock in size. If this is the result of artificial growing and of in-breeding, I shall keep right on.

In-Breeding.

I have always selected the very choicest and best from the many I raised for breeding stock, and the result has been a gradual increase of size. I have seen many persons who, from a mistaken idea of introducing new blood, have reduced both the size and quality of their stock. Let it be here understood that a man who keeps but one drake and a few ducks is breeding-in fast. But the one who keeps a thousand in different yards can breed many years with impunity, because the intermingling of blood is exactly in inverse ratio to the numbers kept. I have repeatedly heard prominent marketmen in New York and Boston say that my artificially-grown poultry, both in chicks and ducks, were the best that they ever handled.... I will endeavor to secure their signatures to that effect, as convincing proof of this, as I wish the public to know the truth as it is.

I was then breeding Pekins exclusively, and found the business while growing them was far more profitable than ever before, and accordingly increased my incubating and brooding capacity, and instead of growing 1,500 to 2,000 ducklings, grew from 10,000 to 20,000. This was done during the early spring and summer, the machines and brooders being used for early chicks during the winter. I had observed that, during my experience with chicks, that crossing with the best breeds always made better layers and better market birds than either of the breeds from which they originated; also, that the first cross was always the best, and that continued breeding from crosses is sure to deteriorate both in size and quality.

Crossing.

I conceived the idea of procuring some of the best stock possible of Rouens, Aylesburys, Cayugas, and crossing them on the Pekins, with the object of increasing the size and precocity. I experimented first with Cayugas, and crossed both ways, using both Pekin and Cayuga drakes, and, in order to test the experiment fairly, the mongrel eggs were hatched in the same machine, the young birds grown in the same yards, subjected to the same care and feed, with the Pekins. The Cayuga cross was very satisfactory, with two exceptions. They were fine, plump birds, took on fat readily, and matured as early as the Pekins, while the mortality was not more than one per cent. on either, but we found that the skin was dark, the dark pins, when there were any, showing very plainly beneath.

These birds were sent to market in the same boxes with the Pekins. Our dealers to whom we shipped allowed us the same price for them as for the Pekins, as there were but few of them, but had they all been of that color would have been obliged to cut them two cents per pound on the price. This was enough for me, especially as I found that the feathers commanded but little more than half the price of the pure white feathers of the Pekins.

The experiment, though conducted in the same manner, with the Rouens, was somewhat different in result. There was a great loss from those mongrels. They evidently inherited the same weak constitutions of the Rouens. They had not the vitality of the Pekins, while they required at least three weeks longer to mature. This latter alone was sufficient to condemn them for all market purposes, especially when subjected to the same discount on dark pins and feathers as the Cayugas. This was sufficient to discard both breeds for my use as market birds.

Aylesburys.