DUCK DOLLARS 77 
by his letter. Anybody who starts off on a campaign of letter-writing 
or walking tour of investigation as to whether ducklings are salable, 
and at what prices, would better, as we have suggested before, inquire 
for what he can buy them. Let the dealers come to you, when you have 
the ducklings ready. If you are breeding the right ducklings, they will 
drum you for the chance to sell them. It is all under your control. 
Make a start, turn out the ducklings and begin learning the markets 
as well as other details by actual practice. An ounce of this practice, this 
actual handligg of the business, is worth a ton of theorizing. The sub- 
ject takes on a near and real aspect. We have had cus- 
tomers write four-page letters for weeks asking full Car , 
details about size of shipping boxes, locations of mar- ae janie 
Experience 
kets, names of marketmen who would take 100 duck- 
lings a day, etc., fearing that should they embark in the industry 
they would flood their nearest city with ducklings which would be 
a drug in the market—and all the while these beginners did not have 
even a trio of ducks; their fears existed on paper only. Anybody who 
can entertain doubts that ducklings and other poultry can be sold profit- 
ably when raised, has not intelligence enough to succeed in poultry rais- 
ing. Such people should face at the start the fact that they are unfitted 
for business on their own hook, and should keep on working for others 
more resourceful and more enterprising. It is weak and pitiful, when 
a man, presumably intelligent and at the age of discretion, will write 
and say: “I live in a small place 200 miles from any city, and I don’t 
think I can market ducklings if I raise them, or make any money 
with them; do you believe I can?” What can be said to such a man 
to convince him? Can anything be said briefly? Hardly. Such a man 
must be educated from the beginning. He has no imagination. He 
cannot conceive that there are people who like to have good things from 
day to day on their dinner tables; city people, and country people, too, 
not only the wealthy ones, but the comfortably well-off, who are search- 
ing for nice, appetizing food to eat all the time. Never having been in 
a great city market, he does not realize that tons and tons of ducklings 
and carloads of chickens and eggs melt away there every day like dew 
in the morning sun. We speak of this subject emphatically because it 
is an exasperating experience to receive a letter from a 
beginner expressing doubts as to the markets, and fears A Flooded 
: : Market 
that he will flood his nearest market, once he starts. : 
Unlikely 
Such letter-writers almost invariably state their alarm 
that the whole country soon will be raising ducks, and that ducks will 
drop in value to nothing. 
Another doubt of beginners is that they cannot sell ducklings except 
cheaply to commis.ion men and dealers. Why should a duck breeder 
sell to a commission man or dealer, if he does not wish to? The selling 
of his product is always under the control of the breeder. He can sell 
to whom he pleases and is not obliged to take the first offer. We have 
always sold to commission men and dealers and made a good profit; 
but we have been well aware all the time that we could have made more 
money selling over their heads direct. Some dealers and commission 
