RANKIN'S DUCK • BOOK 



and market purposes. .This is a vital question, and it is. as 

 well for the public to fully understand this thing now, as 

 well as its origin. There is many a person who has been 

 thoroughly convinced of the great advantages and the econ- 

 omy of the artificial over the natural way of doing it, and 

 who would gladly have started in the business, but was 

 deterred by the prevailing opinion that artificially-grown 

 birds were always deficient in plumage, and could never win 

 at a show, and that the flesh was inferior for table use and 

 could not find a ready sale. It is as well to explode this 

 thing now, and expose its utter fallacy. There is not a shadow 

 of doubt but that much poor poultry has been put upon the 

 market by people who have attempted its culture in the 

 artificial way by growing hundreds of ducks and chicks in 

 the same limited space that they formerly used for a dozen 

 with an old hen. 



These, of course, could not be otherwise than poor and 

 the mortality great. Another reason : the fancy business in 

 poultry is fast being overdone. The best breeds are now 

 scattered far and wide over the entire country. There is not 

 the demand for them that there has been, because good birds 

 can be obtained nearer home. Many of our old and well- 

 known fanciers are making frantic but vain efforts to keep 

 their business up to its former standard. They have suffered 

 considerably from competition with artificially-grown birds, 

 and they roundly assert that it is an unnatural method, that 

 the conditions are not right, that it affects the growth and 

 plumage of the bird in such a manner as to preclude its ever 

 taking a first-class premium, at our shows. 



Now if they can convince the public that naturally grow n , 

 birds can capture premiums, and they grow all their birds, 

 in the natural way, it is easy to see how their trade would, 

 be increased. 



Now, I never could see how the old hen could impart 

 vigor to her chicks by imparting lice, or how the increased 

 contributions of filth from the old hen, united to that from 

 the chicks, could ever make the conditions more favorable than 

 that from the chicks alone. It can no longer be denied that 

 the artificially-grown fowls are fast coming to the front, — a 

 place which they already occupy in the market. Many of 

 the largest and most successful breeders in the country, who 

 are winning prizes at the shows, grow their birds artificially. 

 Our own Pekin ducks had, for many generations, been hatched 

 and grown artificially, and for size, symmetry, and beauty of 

 plumage they stood unrivaled in North America. They have 



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