ard] were always going back to the green egg and did not lay 

 within 10 per cent of the amount of eggs as my pencils; the lat- 

 ter giving me daily exclusively pure white eggs. Need I tell 

 you how quickly I made away with the fawn and white and now 

 breed my pencils only ; and never again any other kind ! 



"I have thirty laying ducks now and in June last they gave 

 me 752 eggs; July 746, and so far this month — 33 days — 414 

 eggs but it must be taken into consideration that they are now in 

 their heavy moult. I can sell all my penciled eggs I can get, so 

 much so that I have raised this summer only 72 birds. Give me 

 as a standard the duck that produces and not the one that has 

 plumage and that is all." This letter is from Georgia. 



A farmer-fancier farther north wrote me in July, 1912: 

 "Last spring a man had a drake given him, then he wanted some 

 of my ducks. I would only spare one, a yearling. He writes 

 that in the 92 days he has had her, she laid 93 eggs, laying two 

 eggs June 10. All her eggs hatched but three infertiles and two 



dead in shell. He liked her so well he went to and paid 



$5.00 each for a few, sold enough hatching eggs to pay for them 

 and some over, and has 195 youngsters growing well and is per- 

 fectly dehghted with them. How is that for a beginner?" This 

 was in the middle states, with the penciled ducks. 



In 1910 a Virginia farmer bought birds of me, regular Cum- 

 berland or English Penciled stock ; he having then had the fawn 

 and white some years, but wishing to throw them out on account 

 of the green eggs. I have tried to keep a little tab on what he 

 was doing each year since. He has had a trade in eggs for 

 hatching which hardly left him enough eggs for himself. In 

 order to get an idea of how the ducks were doing year after year 

 in the hands of a general farmer treating them as a side issue, I 

 wrote him early in January, 1913. His reply was: "As to rec- 

 ords, I don't keep very careful ones, but have a pretty accurate 

 one for the past fall months. My 60 old ducks (seven of them 



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