RANKIN'S DTJCK BOOK 



the duck industry. There is less capital required in propor- 

 tion to returns. My own experience, which I will briefly re- 

 late proves that to me beyond a doubt. 



Nearly forty years ago I started in on a 125 acre farm, 

 and before I had done with it, it was called one of the best 

 farms in Pristol county, Mass. I had a good milk route with 

 eighteen cows to furnish the milk, a good truck and fruit busi- 

 ness with three hundred to four hundred fowls, ducks, and 

 hens in about equal numbers. I soon had that farm cutting 

 two hundred tons of hay. I had not been running it many 

 years before I found that the poultry department was doing 

 by far the best work and making the largest returns, and hav- 

 ing an eye to the profits, the fruit and truck was dropped out, 

 the milk business followed suit, the cows were sold, the hens 

 were eliminated and nothing but ducks filled the bill. 



In the meantime I had invented an incubator, not only 

 to hatch my own eggs but those of my neighbors as well. It 

 not only proved a success at home but went to Australia, New 

 Zealand, South Africa, Europe as well as in our own country. 

 There was a great call for it and it was fairly profitable, but 

 I found that I could make more money by using those ma- 

 chines in hatching my ducks' eggs than by making them, so 

 that both incubators and hens followed the milk business. 



I am now more than four score years of age, and have re- 

 tired'from the business, but have endeavored in this little book 

 to impart what little knowledge I possess on this important 

 subject to the reader. If he can learn wisdom by my experi- 

 ence and avoid the errors into which I fell, it is all I ask. The 

 business, as I learned its details, became more profitable each 

 year; while the experience of our last season in the work was 

 highly satisfactory, as the demand was greater than ever be- 

 fore. 



FORMULAS FOR FEEDING DUCKS 



For Breeding Birds. 



(Old and young, during the Fall.) 

 We turn them out to pasture, when we can, in lots of 



200. 



Feed three parts wreat-bran ; one part low grade flour; 



one part corn meal ; five per cent, of beef-scrap ; three per cent. 



of grit, and all the green feed they will eat, in the shape of 



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