CHAP. XIII.] FARMING FOR LADIES. 273 



kuow that, if governed by that advice, they 

 would frequently lose more than half their 

 ducklings. These may be fed, until about 

 a month old, with the same food as any other 

 young chicks ; after which they should be 

 committed entirely to the mother, and brought 

 up as store fowls until they are to be fat- 

 tened. 



We have already seen that ducklings, for 

 very early use, are generally hatched hy hens 

 — although it compels them to sit ten days 

 longer than for the production of their own 

 chicks — and it has long been the practice to 

 adopt that plan at a more advanced season ; 

 both because the hen will cover as many as 

 twenty eggs — while the duck covers only 

 twelve to fourteen — and that she is a more 

 careful nurse. It is, however, not a little 

 singular, that writers, who vehemently pro- 

 test against the " barbarity " — as they term 

 it — of plucking and cramming geese and 

 turkeys, are so inconsistent as not only to 

 see nothing cruel in employing a hen in a 

 way that is opposed to her instinct, but even 

 uphold the practice by sneering at " the folly 

 of pitying a hen, when she sees her brood 



T 



