DUCK DOLLARS 13 
transported that incubator at night and hid it where nobody could see 
it and keep an amused watch over their experiment. If they did it, 
others can do it. They were unskilled when they started. They had 
no guide but their own experience. It took two or three Three 
failures of details to hammer the successful way into Failures 
them. Now they raise ducklings with as much ease and Necessary 
certainty as a sawmill turns out boards. They start the incubators and 
the ducks later get to market with no guessing. No matter how many 
thousands they ship to market, the marketmen always want more. There 
never has been a time when the duck market has been glutted, or the 
ducks slow sellers. The Webers seldom go to market, and have always 
sold to commission men and dealers, never direct; but there is no doubt 
they would have made more money if they had sold their product direct 
to consumers. They have not had time to work up such a selling system, 
but have always done well with what the commission men and dealers 
were willing to pay them. 
The large business has been done with the following building equip- 
ment: One house 25 x 2€0 feet; one 30 x 300; one 16 x If0; one 12 x 160; 
one 16x II0; one 12x 250; one 20x510; one 12x 60; 
one 9x 60; one 20x50; one 20x 40; three 20 x 300, and eo 
three incubator houses. Total square feet of floor ~4C*% 
Buildings 
space, 42,040. There is no building now more than 
twelve years old, except one storehouse built fourteen years ago. Early 
buildings, poorly planned or inadequate, have been torn down to make 
room for the modern ones. The water plant consists of a gasoline 
pumping engine and a twelve-foot wheel on wood tower, a two-inch main 
pipe leading to a 14,000-gallon tank, one 2,000-gallon tank and over half 
a mile of galvanized iron piping. (In 1911 an addition to the water 
works was erected, and enough new piping laid to bring the total up to 
one and one-half miles.) 
The firm has sent annually for several years 40,000 to 45,000 duck- 
lings to market, the daily work of from five to nine pickers being 
necessary. 
Two gasoline engines have been in use at the farm, one to pump 
water, the other (of seven horse-power) to run the food mixer. The 
food-mixing machine saves two men’s labor, and paid 
for itself in a few months after installation. For the mae 
fate afternoon feed at the height of the season, 300 pail- OF: 
Business 
fuls are given to the birds. Grain, grit, shells, etc., are 
bought by the carload. The teaming is done by a neighbor. Only 
one horse is kept for farm work. The farm has its own ice-pond, 
enough being cut to cool the refrigerating tanks. (No ice is used in 
shipping to Boston market.) During the time when most of the duck- 
lings are growing, two tons of feed a day are used. The only expensive 
food is rolled oats, of which only fifteen barrels a year are fed. The 
other feeds are the cheapest obtainable for any live stock. 
The farm ships a large quantity of the white feathers for which fifty 
cents a pound is obtained. The receipts for these feathers amount to 
about $100 a wee::. 
There have been twenty-five incubators in use, each of 450 duck-egg 
