1158 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept, 1 



"Mr. Root, my ducklings are always old 

 enough to eat. 1 never saw a duck that 

 would not eat if it had a chance. They will 

 eat, and take care of themselves almost as 

 soon as they are out of the shell — that is, in 

 any decent kind of summer weather." 



I saw them when only a few hours old at 

 their home, contented, without any mother 

 or brooder. Of course, they had a nice warm 

 little box just right for the number of ducks 

 to get into at night. Well, Mr. Bolei said 

 the same thing. He soon found that, instead 

 of the ducks following the hen, the hen would 

 just follow the ducks; and so they took the 

 hen away from them, and the ducks got along 

 all right, and the hen soon commenced lay- 

 ing again. 



Now, if I did not see this thing going on, 

 at two different "duck-farms," i should be 

 incredulous. No mother or brooder is point 

 No. 3. 



I suppose there needs to be, of course, a 

 sufficient number of ducks — say a dozen or 

 more — together to keep up the animal heat 

 during very cool nights. Of course, you will 

 have to protect them from rats and other 

 enemies; but any up-to-date farmer ought to 

 be ashamed of having rats on his premises. 



I do not believe anybody ever saw health- 

 ier ducks. In fattening his ducks for mar- 

 ket Mr. Bolei gives them all they will eat; 

 and he has a novel scheme for giving them 

 corn without the chickens being able to get 

 it. A tight box that will hold water, say 

 four or hve inches deep, contains their corn. 

 The ducks can, of course, reach down in the 

 water and get the soaked corn, which is just 

 to their taste. The chickens can see the corn, 

 but they can not stand the water. This is 

 point No. 4.* 



Now, point No. 5 /have not quite worked 

 out; but it does work out over in China, and 

 the Chinese are ahead of us in at least one 

 industry — the duck business. The following 

 letters explain themselves: 



Mr. A. I. Boot;— As you are interested in ducks and 

 incubators I send you a letter received from my cousin 

 in China, describing their method of hatching duclis. 



Ellwood City, Pa. J. A. EvAJJS. 



DUCKS AND DUCK INCUBATORS IN CHINA. 



The duck-hatching establishments here turn the lit- 



* The above method of having corn or other grain 

 right before the ducks, where they can get it when- 

 ever they want it, and yet have it secure from other 

 prowlers, even rats and mice, is of more moment than 

 you may think at first. I am now feeding my six In- 

 dian Kunner ducks in this way; and I can put corn 

 enough in their water-tank to last them a week, and 

 it is securely locked up from any other vermin that I 

 know of. We often hear about automatic feeders for 

 poultry; but can you imagine any thing more automat- 

 ic than this? The corn keeps perfectly good and 

 sweet for possibly a week or more for ducks, and it 

 seems to be just to their notion. You may remember 

 that, last winter, I wrote about my Leghorn chickens 

 just beginning to fly, and I called them my " Florida 

 fiying-machines;" but my Indian Runner ducks are 

 now just about ten weeks old, and they are operating 

 with their new-found wings every day, especially 

 toward evening; and I do not know but I find about as 

 much enjoyment in seeing them learn to fly as I shall 

 have, if I live long enough, in seeing people learn to fly. 

 May be, through a kind Providence, I may have an 

 opportunity to do a little flying myself. May God be 

 praised for the unexplored opportunities that still 

 open up right before us in so many different direc- 

 tions. 



tie chaps out by the thousand during the season. The 

 process of artificial incubators is so old that the duck 

 has long since lost the nesting instinct The eggs are 

 put into bushel b iskets which are placed on a revolv- 

 ing platform in a small oven with a fireplace at one 

 side. After two weeks the eggs are transferred to 

 larger beds and well covered with pads. The only 

 theremometer us'd is the eye. The eggs are touched 

 to the eyelid to know whether they are warm enough. 

 After the third day all eggs are candled, and the non- 

 fertile ones put on the market. 

 Yii-yiuo, China, Jan. 25. J. E. Shoemaker. 



Now, friends, do you catch on to point No. 

 5? I told you about seeing ducks, after they 

 were hatched, getting along right in summer 

 weather without any mother or brooder. 

 Well, these friends of ours, the Chinamen, 

 have gone further if I am correct. They 

 have discovered that the animal heat from 

 strong fertile eggs, a sufficientnumber of them, 

 will hatch out ducks in a warm climate, with- 

 out any artificial heat in the way of mother or 

 incubator. The friend in China who writes 

 the letter does not give us tj;ie full particulars; 

 but mv impression is that the duck eggs, 

 after tne second week, are so well insulated 

 in beds with "pads," as he expresses it, that 

 they hold the animal heat until hatching 

 time. The principle must be the same as 

 that of the tireless stove for cooking, that is 

 now making such advances. We have one 

 already installed in our home, and I expect 

 to tell you more about these later. It was 

 purchased of the Caloric Fireless Cook-stove 

 Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. Now can any of 

 our readers tell us more about the way they 

 hatch ducks in China without any artificial 

 heat after the fifteenth or twentieth day? 



YELLOW SWEET CLOVER, AND ITS WONDER 

 FUL PKOPEUTIES AS A NITROGEN-GATH- 

 ERER FROM THE AIR. 



We clip the following from a late issue of 

 the Scientific American. Of course they clo 

 not call it sweet clover; but a reference to 

 page i03G of this journal settles the question. 



The possibilities of certain grasses being utilized for 

 the purpose of fertilizing, and thereby reclaiming for 

 cultivation, waste stretches such as sand dunes, has 

 been strikingly demonstrated upon King Island, which 

 is situated between the coasts of Tasmania and the 

 Australian mainland. This island has always been 

 an arid waste of sand and other non-arable soil. Some 

 few years ago, however, a vessel was wrecked off the 

 island, and when broken up under the force of the 

 waves, a number of the sailors' mattresses, which 

 were stuffed with the yellow-flowered clover, a kind 

 of grass, were washed ashore. A certain quantity of 

 seed was contained among the stuffing, and in due 

 course these look root, and, owing to their prolific 

 growth, in the space of a few years covered the sandy 

 stretches with rich verdure. It is a long-established 

 fact that clover and other leguminous plants have the 

 peculiar capacity of fertilizing a waste soil, owing 

 principally to the action of bacteria, thereby enabling 

 the plants to draw nitrogen directly from the atmos- 

 phere. In the case of King Island, owing to the prop- 

 erties of this yellow-flowered clover, what was pre- 

 viously a waste stretch of sand is now one of the rich- 

 est grazing districts in the Australian continent. The 

 growth of the plant completely changes the character 

 and color of the soil from a dirty white to a rich dark 

 brown or black loamy nature. 



When I get back to Florida again during 

 the coming winter I am going to try very 

 hard to get yellow sweet clover to flourish 

 in some of the sandy waste places in that 

 region. 



