PO UL TR T- CRAFT. 233 



CHAPTER XVII. 



DUCKS. 



343. Introductory. The duck business as carried on by " duck farm- 

 ers," usually combines the growing of " green " * ducks for market, of stock 

 for exhibition and breeding, and the production of eggs for hatching. Eggs 

 are not produced specially for table use, as hen eggs are, and only a small per 

 cent of duck eggs go to market. A few duck farmers confine operations to 

 the growing of market ducks. 



The duck business presents several features worth special mention : Duck 

 growing for profit really has to do with only one of the numerous varieties of 

 ducks, that one being for the purpose far superior to all others. In striking 

 contrast to the turkey the general farmers' fowl the duck is a fowl for the 

 specialist, peculiarly suited to intensive poultry keeping. Ducks are remark- 

 ably free from disease and vermin. They grow twice as fast as chickens and 

 turkeys. Of all fowls they are most easily managed in close quarters. Some 

 of their bad points as well as the good ones are to the advantage of the 

 specialist. They are of all fowls the most difficult to dress properly, and the 

 most unsalable when not marketed in nice condition. Thus in handling them 

 skilled labor with convenient appliances has greater advantages over make- 

 shift arrangements and unskilled or half-skilled labor than in any other branch 

 of poultry keeping. 



Until a few years ago the growing of green ducks for market, which is the 

 principal branch of the business, was carried on only in a few localities within 

 easy reach of New York and Boston ; but of late, poultry keepers all over 

 the country, excited by stories of large profits from ducks, have tried duck 

 growing. Some large farms have been established at interior points, and 

 thousands of poultry keepers have been producing ducks in quantities ranging 

 from a few dozens to as many hundreds. Very few of those thus engaging in 

 duck growing had any knowledge of the real condition of the duck market 

 further than that ducks were generally bringing much better prices than other 

 poultry, or realized how very limited was the demand for green ducks 

 outside of the large eastern cities. The duck, has been, as a recent writer justly 



*NOTE. "Green" ducks: quick grown ducks marketed at between two and three 

 months of age corresponding to soft roasters in chickens. 



