234 PO UL TR T- CRAFT. 



says : " more the food of the clubman and the epicure than the staple dish of 

 the family." This was the case where the edible qualities of quick grown, 

 grain fed ducks were pretty well known. Elsewhere the reputation of 

 44 duck" as a food was about as unsavory as the flesh of the common puddle 

 duck, the only kind of which people generally knew anything. Consumers 

 of poultry were apt to look askance at their poultryman when he tried to sell 

 them duck as a delicacy, and at a higher price than chicken. Thus the 

 growth of a popular taste and demand for ducks is necessarily slow, the more 

 so because so many regular consumers of good poultry can eat duck only 

 occasionally, or only in cool weather ; or, perhaps, not at all. Under the 

 circumstances, the first who tried ducks in each locality usually found it much 

 easier to produce duck meat than to sell it profitably. The natural result was 

 the congestion of the surpluses from all quarters in the few markets where 

 the demand had been good. Following this came demoralization of prices, 

 particularly in the latter part of each season. 



Though the business has been temporarily overdone, well established farms 

 are able to make a very fair profit ; and duck growing still offers opportunity 

 for a living or a part of a living according as one engages in it extensively and 

 exclusively, or on a smaller scale in connection with other branches of poultry 

 culture, or with some other business. Wherever good ducks are produced, 

 the demand for them will steadily increase, and though it is neither likely nor 

 for the best good of the industry desirable, that there should be a return 

 to the high prices of earlier years, the inevitable adjustment of supply to 

 demand will hold prices high enough generally to give the grower a living 

 profit. 



344. Profit From Ducks. On large plants the estimated total cost of 

 producing ducks is 6 to 8 cts. per pound. At the lowest prices yet reached 

 this gives the grower a net profit of 15 to 20 cts. on each duck. As a large 

 part of the product is marketed before very low prices are reached, the average 

 net profit, at prevailing prices, should be about 25 cts. or more, per duck. At 

 that figure a plant producing ten thousand to fifteen thousand ducks annually 

 yields a substantial profit. A plant of such capacity, however, is not built in 

 a season, nor is it every man who tries duck growing that can successfully 

 manage such a plant. It represents a total investment of hardly less than 

 $10,000, and the ability to produce ducks at the cost figures given is gained 

 only with years of practical experience. In a business conducted on a smaller 

 scale the cost of production is greater, and the profit less. A plant which one 

 man could manage, with a little assistance during the marketing season, would 

 hardly do more nowadays than give him fair remuneration for his own labor. 

 His net income would probably be about the same as that for the one man 

 poultry business described in *[[ 4. The amounts credited to different items 

 would differ; the totals would be nearly the same. This estimate, however, 

 is merely suggestive. As a matter of fact, but one duck grower in a hundred 



