46 



Bird - Lore 



in the fields, is fairly safe from the ducks until the Mallards and Sprig-tails begin 

 to come in numbers in November and December. 



When the rice farmers shall have secured better drainage for their fields, 

 their crops will be larger and the fields will be in much better condition for har- 

 vesting during a wet season. Prominent growers are advocating stacking rice 

 as a means of protection. Mr. S. Locke Breaux writes to "Rice Industry" on 

 December 20, 1907, " When you have the conditions of weather that have existed 

 ... a man will have to stack his stuff, and, if it is properly stacked the weather 

 is not goinc; to hurt it much and certainlv the birds and hogs won't hurt it at all." 



.•\ WILD DUCK PRESERVE 



Messrs. Frank Bond and George H. Keeney, irrigation experts, state in Bul- 

 letin No. 113 of the United States Department of Agriculture that observant 

 rice-growers who have watched the wild fowl and measured the extent of their 

 depredations state that good rice farming and intelligent handling of the crops 

 after reaping will place the birds wholly on the beneficial list. 



Wild ducks are the most useful of all birds to the rice farmers because they 

 are the most industrious gleaners of the volunteer red rice which otherwise seeds 

 down the fields to the great injury of the coming rice crop. Rice that scatters 

 from the heads during harvesting is believed by many persons to produce red 

 rice, but the Louisiana station has proved that the red rice is a distinct variel\-. 

 There is usually more or less of this red rice in the field, the grain shatters out 

 readily and where there are not birds enough to clean it uj), large quantities 

 spring up and grow. Where this is the case, this worthless grain may take such 



