DUCK DOLLARS 73 
should be seventy-five to 100 pounds. It takes twenty to thirty minutes to 
stuff a bag. A bag may be filled easiest when it is suspended beneath a 
hole which has been cut in the floor of the loft. The feathers are then 
pushed, packed or shovelled in more easily than if picked up by handfuls. 
The feathers have a little odor when shipped. The feather man takes 
off this odor by using first a steam renovator which dries the feathers 
and kills all the animal germs in them with superheated : 
steam which is very dry. The feathers are then put Separating 
through a blowing machine, which separates the down. own 
The feather men get more money for this down than they do for the 
feathers. 
These feathers are used to make bed and sofa pillows and all kinds 
of pillows. They are also used to make beds, especially for foreigners 
from Europe, where feather-beds are much more in use than in this 
country. There is quite a trade in these feather-beds, old-fashioned as 
-they are. The demand for feathers for pillows never lets up. 
Markets 
The best way to find out how the market stands is to ask the com- 
mission man or dealer for what he is selling ducklings. Don’t tell him 
you have, or may have, some to sell. Ask to buy some. ; 
Then you will learn the real facts about the market. oy toFind 
With that information in hand, see the dealer and tell True Prices 
him you will sell ducklings at that price, less his commission. To find 
out the true prices, anywhere, always ask to buy, and never to sell. Then 
make your own selling price so as to give both you and the dealer a fair 
profit. 
There is considerable foolishness in the commission business in this 
way. Some of the commission men claim to be handling farm produce 
on purely a commission basis, returning to tle shipper the full price 
received, less ten per cent. commission. This is not always true. They 
are not satisfied with ten per cent. profit. They buy as low as they can 
and take ten per cent. off that, then they sell for what they can get, 
and this selling price represents a profit of from thirty to 100 per cent. 
In various sections of the country where we have customers, we 
have written to commission men and poultry dealers (whose names we 
could learn in no other way than by looking in city directories), in order 
to find out what they would pay for ducks. We have done this at remote 
poirftts, as we had plenty of knowledge as to the immensity of the big 
city markets. 
We have always found by such inquiries that ducks are sellers every- 
where, and we know that ducklings bred from our stock would go like 
wild-fire anywhere. 
We recall one customer in the vicinity of Atlanta, Georgia. In 
writing to the wholesale dealers there, in October, 
when prices for ducklings are the lowest of the year, 
we received the following ‘replies: 
-y. “We are selling now old ducks that dress fat for sixteen to 
eighteen cents a pound, and this demand will continue throughout the 
Prices in 
Atlanta 
