DUCKS. Ill 



Duck Culture, described the house in which he keeps 

 his breeding ducks through the winter as covering 

 fifteen by two hundred feet floor space, having five-foot 

 posts in the rear and four-foot posts in front, and an 

 uneven double roof, the short slant being in the rear. 

 There is a walk through the rear, three and one-half 

 feet wide. The building is divided every twenty-four 

 feet into pens, in each of which forty ducks are 

 wintered. The partitions are but two feet high. The 

 walk is separated from the pens by lath three inches 

 apart, to allow the birds to feed and drink from 

 troughs placed in the walk. This arrangement enables 



ONE OF JAMES RANKIN'S DUCK HOUSES. 



an attendant to feed and water the whole houseful in 

 a few minutes, a wheelbarrow or truck being used for 

 carrying supplies ; it also prevents waste of feed or 

 fouling of the feed or water. Only ten feet of this 

 slat partition along the walk in each pen is used for 

 feed, and four feet is made movable so that the attend- 

 ant can enter with barrow to clean out the pens. The 

 other ten feet along the walk is lined with the nests, 

 which are fifteen inches square, the back and division 

 boards being a foot high and the board next to the 

 pen but four inches, or just high enough to keep the 

 nest material in. This latter consists of cut straw or 

 hay, which is kept dry and clean, thus preventing the 

 eggs from becoming soiled and stain _d. With such a 



