RANKIN'S DUCK BOOK 



startling. What ! can I grow ducks in three months as cheaply 

 as I can grow pork in a year, or beef in two years, and then 

 get six times as much per pound for it after it is grown? 

 Yes, if figures tell the truth. Can I afford longer to grow 

 large crops of fruit and vegetables, working early and late, 

 risking frosts and drouths, making a bare livelihood, when 

 with one-tenth part of the labor and capital involved I can 

 grow a crop which drouths and frosts do not injure, and make 

 five times as much? No! I have not had a hog on my farm 

 since I kept a Kemp's spreader to work over the manure, 

 and simply grow fruit and vegetables enough for feathered 

 thieves and home consumption. Another question arose : 

 What shall I do with my cows? some sixteen or eighteen in 

 number, bull, young stock, etc. 



My Farm 



Now, I had become somewhat proud of my farm, as 

 what man does not who had quadrupled its increase within 

 ten years? I was cutting yearly some two hundred tons of 

 hay on less than half that number of acres, and I knew that 

 if I sold my cows I should, in some way, be obliged to get 

 rid of my hay and that would mean disaster to the farm. 

 There might be no decrease in acres, but there would be a 

 sad diminution in the tons of hay. The result was, I kept 

 cows for my own use. Built two new barns, each one hun- 

 dred feet long, the basements of which were utilized for box 

 stalls, accommodating sixty boarding horses. These con- 

 verted my hay and grain (for which I received the market 

 price) into manure. This was all I expected and all I got. 



Some time ago a gentleman from New York caught me 

 hoeing in my onion patch. He expressed his astonishment 

 at the size of the onions. Said he: "Your land seems well 

 adapted to this crop." "Yes, I have some twenty or thirty 

 acres that are level, the soil is easily worked and friable, not 

 troubled much with maggot, and, if properly handled, is about 

 sure of a crop." "Why don't you put it all into onions?" 

 "I cannot afford to." "Why," said he, "if our New York 

 farmers had that land within twenty or thirty miles of New 

 York city it would be worth $1,000 an acre, and they would 

 make it pay twenty-five per cent, of that, too, every year." 

 "Possibly they could, but with one-tenth of the labor and 1 

 capital employed I can raise ducks enough on one acre to 

 buy all the onions I can raise on ten. If I am going to increase 

 my capital and labor in any direction I should put it into- 

 ducks, not onions." He acknowledged that perhaps I was 



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