140 



DOXTESTIC ANIMALS. 



[CnAP. I. 



Ducks' eggs are not esteemed for the table, but are in cookery. Tlic birds 

 when well fatted are always salable, or good for home consumption, and 

 pay as well for the corn they cat as anything in tiie poultry-yard. 



In selecting a variety of ducks, the purposes for which they are to be bred 

 must be considered. If for ornament, select the jirettiest. If for scaven- 

 gers, we would use the common gray duck and drake with green head. 



The best white duck is the Aylesbury. It has yellow legs and feet and 

 flesh-colored bill. White ducks should never be kept except where water 

 and grass are both abundant. In the water or on a lawn they are pretty. 

 In a muddy yard they are not so. 



There is a great variety of colors, but we recommend you to confine j^ours 

 to a single color, whether white, black, gray, blue, or slate. Tlie feathers 

 of ducks are as good as geese feathers, and some housewives pluck them in 

 the same waj'. 



The duck sits tliirty days ; and the hen should be confined an equal length 

 of time, where the ducklets can go out, and into natural or artificial water. 

 Yon can not feed them too much, and they are no way dainty. When 

 large enough, give them a wide range, bringing them home at night. The 

 best food for grown ducks is Indian corn, and the best ducks for the table 

 are domesticated wild ones, fatted on corn, or wild ones that have had a 

 full range in corn-iields. Beech-mast also makes the flesh of wild ducks 

 excellent. 



192. Geese. — As geese are generally kept by farmers, they are neither 

 profitable nor oi-namental, but, on the contrary, an xmmitigated nuisance, 

 befouling grass and water, door-yards and roadsides, and always poking 

 their heads through holes into mischief. 



Geese never should be kept upon or about any farm, except in a lot 

 appropriated to their particular use. A man who would turn out a flock of 

 geese upon the public highway to pirate their living, we would not trust 

 about our hen-roost of a dark night. 



If geese are kept on a large scale, where water is good, and pastured Jike 

 any other stock, and finally fatted for market, upon the same principle that 

 pigs are fed and fatted, we will insure the largest profit from the geese, 

 particularly if the best breeds are selected. 



The Chinese or IIong-Kong geese and the Bremen geese are much larger 

 varieties tlian ihe breed common in this countrj'. The Bremen geese have 

 pure white ])liimage, v.-itli clean j-cUow legs and bills. They attain to 

 great weight and age — twenty or thirty years, and as many pounds. Tlie 

 flesh of a young, fat Bremen goose is esteemed above all tlie domesticated 

 tril)e, and the feathers are salable at the very highest rates. 



This breed is very prolific, laying twelve or fifteen eggs a year, and the 

 geese are good sitters and nurses. Tiiey are somewhat inclined to couNnence 

 laying too earlj' in the season. To jirevent this, shut the whole flock in a 

 dark room, about the twentieth of February, and feed and water once a day, 

 and allow them an hour out once a week to wash and have a run. ' In a few 



