PLANNING SIDE-LINE PRODUCE 137 



forward to with the keenest pleasure: bees do not 

 have to be fed. 



There is still lots of room for expansion in the 

 poultry department. We have kept a few ducks 

 for years, and since the earliest times a flock of 

 scrub pigeons has condescended to live in the barn. 

 They make it up to us by contributing an occa- 

 sional pair of squabs. Ducks are very satisfactory 

 meat critters; they are prolific and quick-growing. 

 Like chicks, the young flourish on wire better than 

 in the open. They do not require open water; in 

 fact, the meat is better quality if they are kept 

 away from it, although they do say a breeding 

 flock is the better for it. I have never raised either 

 geese or guinea fowl, but suspect if turkeys, ducks, 

 and as per the performance of the state game 

 farms pheasant and quail are amenable to modern 

 mechanized hatching and brooding they would re- 

 spond equally well. I have incubated and brooded 

 turkeys in my cellar factory with excellent results. 

 Turkeys are generally esteemed the world's stupid- 

 est fowl: they literally do not know enough to 

 come in out of the rain. Pre-maturity casualties 

 under natural conditions are appalling. Under 

 mechanization they drop to the same level as chick- 

 ens. Another source of turkey casualties but lately 

 revealed by research is a disease called the black- 

 headed worm. It is deadly to turkeys; but chickens 

 have an immunity to it and are carriers of it. 



