POULTRY-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 ¢rzed 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 
* NoTeE.—‘' Green” ducks :—quick grown ducks marketed at between two and three 
months of age — corresponding to soft roasters in chickens. 
