TEE GENESEE FARMER. 



115 



island of a Jake, pond, or small stream, and half 

 covered with vines or shrubbery, would make a 

 very pretty home for aquatic birds. The size of 

 tKe building may vary according to the wants of 

 the owner. Laying and setting boxes may be 

 placed at either or both sides of the building, under 

 the rooting, on the ground. 



They should have a place separate from other 

 fowls, on account of the great difference in their 

 habits. When circumstances will permit the ar- 

 rangement, we recommend having the house ad- 

 joining the pond, which should be enclosed. The 

 laying ducks should have plenty of room for the 

 sake of cleanliness, and should never share the hab- 

 itation of geese, as the ducks are liable to persecu- 

 tion. When accustomed to be fed in the house, 

 they readily present themselves at the proper time ; 

 in the morning they get their feed apart from the 

 geese and fowls — in which case they are not perse- 

 cuted by the former, nor pilfered by the latter; and 

 thus, too, their eggs are secured with far greater 

 certainty, since the birds are not released from 

 their enclosure till after the hour which usually 

 witnesses the deposit of their eggs. The duck gen- 

 erally lays at night or early in the morning, and is 

 usually disposed to lay away from her house ; but 

 by our plan many eggs are secured which other- 

 wise would have probably been lost. 



A strong desire for the selection of her own nest 

 is generally found to influence the duck ; but this is 

 mainly the case as the time draws near for incuba- 

 tion. Wood is seldom secure against rats, and 

 does not so well suit the cleansing process of water 

 and the lime brush, and few places require their 

 application more frequently. 



Do not crowd your birds, and always arrange 

 for good ventilation. "When the flock is large, sep- 

 arate the young ones, that they may thus have the 

 advantage of better food, and that no risk may be 

 incurred of finding the eggs of the older ones trod- 

 den under foot and broken, at your morning's visit. 

 On this account, the laying ducks should always 

 have plenty of room, and be kept by themselves. 



REARING AND FEEDING THE YOONG. 



The hest mode of rearing ducklings depends very 

 much upon the situation in which they are hatched. 

 On hatching, there is no necessity ot taking away 

 any of the brood, unless some accident should hap- 

 pen ; and having hatched, let the duck retain her 

 young upon the nest her own time. On her mov- 

 ing with her brood, prepare a coop and pen upon 

 the short grass, if the weather be fine, or under 

 shelter, if otherwise; a wide and shallow dish of 

 water, often to be removed, near by them. Their 

 first food should be crumbs of oread moistened 

 with milk; curds, or eggs boiled hard and chopped 

 fine, are also much relished by, and are good for 

 them. After a few days, Indian meal boiled and 

 mixed with milk, and if boiled potatoes, and a few 

 cives or lettuce chopped fine be added, all the bet- 

 ter. All kinds of sopped food, buckwheat flour, 

 barley meal and water mixed thin, worms, etc., 

 suit them. As soon as they have gained a little 

 strength, a good deal of pot-herbs may be given 

 them, raw, chopped fine, and mixed with a little 

 bran soaked in water, barley and boiled potatoes 

 beat up together. They are extremely fond of 

 angle-worms, grubs, and buys of all kinds, and for 



which reasons they may be useful to have a run in 

 the garden daily. All these equally agree with 

 young ducks, which devour the different -substan- 

 ces they meet with, and show, from their most ten- 

 der age, a voracity which they always retain. No 

 people are more successful in rearing ducks than 

 cottagers, who keep them for the first period of 

 their existence in pens two or three yards square, 

 feeding them night and morning with egg and 

 flour, till they are judged old enough to be turned 

 out with their mother to forage in the field. 



It is necessary, to prevent accidents, to take care 

 that the ducklings come regularly home every 

 evening; and precautions must be taken, before 

 they are permitted to mingle with the old ducks, 

 lest the latter should ill-treat and kill them, — 

 though ducks are by no means so pugnacious and 

 jealous of new-comers, as common fowls uniformly 

 are. 



FARMING NOW AND THEN. 



"When this deponent came to little Seneca in 

 1821, all the good farming here was confined to 

 growing the largest fields of wheat of the best 

 quality from the then virgin soil. The man who 

 then sold the most wheat from his farm was called 

 the best farmer; he, of course, grew a large patch 

 of rye to feed with the cut st^raw to his heavy Ger- 

 man plow horses ; but his corn field was then 

 small, always neglected, and very weedy, so that 

 he rarely harvested more than corn enough to tat 

 pork for his family. Farmers who then harvested 

 600 or more bushels of wheat, rarely ever kept 

 more than two or three cows, and poor ones at 

 that — only a lew rough sheep to make the wool 

 for the linsey woolsey and fulled cloth of the fam- 

 ily. But all that is changed now — thanks to the 

 advent of the wheat midge for jostliug'the farmer 

 out of the old track of depending on the wheat 

 crop as the only paying product of the farm ! Be- 

 ing thus driven by a mysterious insect from con- 

 tinuing to grow wheat after wheat, to a more 

 general and varied system of husbandry, grass and 

 clover growing, and stock raising has enabled the 

 farmer to grow large crops of Indian corn, oats, 

 potatoes, etc., with a manure pile continually in- 

 creasing, and also extra rich in plant-food ; so that 

 at this time, as the midge leaves us, the wheat crop 

 is again very profitably included in the judicious 

 rotation of the farm. 



During the late long continued good sleighing, 

 in driving along the western shore of the Cayuga, 

 I was delighted to see the great improvements that 

 have been made in the last thirty years. In every 

 farm yard we passed, instead of a few straw-fed 

 cows and pot-bellied yearlings, and a leaky log 

 shed, as of old, we now see the ample yard enclos- 

 ed on two sides with deep shingle-roofed sheds, 

 which now shelter well-conditioned bovines of im- 

 proved breed, and fine-woolled sheep, all up to 

 their knees in straw, but not straw-fed. The extra 

 large, painted, and blind-ventilated barn is full of 

 well-cured fodder and grain ; and the tall stacks of 

 dark-looking, but early, well-cured clover hay near 

 by, gives an earnest that the farmer knows how 

 to feed his soil, as well as his stock. 



If the farm house does not bring to mind the 

 chaste specimen of Grecian or Gothic architecture, 



