292 
Some Minor Rural Industries. 
tively few hands, the interest in the business is widespread, 
from the fact that it embraces all the people who produce ducks’ 
eggs for sale. At the beginning of the hatching season — when 
the inducement to put ducklings on the market early is a strong 
one — a set of 13 eggs may command up to 6s. or 7s., and in 
extreme cases as much as Is. each is sometimes given at 
Christmas time for fertile eggs. As the laying season advances, 
and eggs become more abundant, the price declines to ordinary 
market rates, but as the produce of these eggs cannot be ready 
for sale till ducklings are plentiful and cheap, the return is 
correspondingly less. Another factor that operates against the 
duck-fattener at the opening of the season is the difficulty at 
the outset of obtaining hens for setting purposes. Artificial 
incubation does not appear to be practised, and in the depth of 
winter as high a price as 4s. may be given for a clucking hen to 
hatch out eggs ; as the spring advances the price declines till it 
finally falls to about Is. 9d. Any kind of hen will answer the 
purpose. 
It is convenient and economical to set several hens simul- 
taneously, so that when, on about the tenth day, the eggs are 
examined and the infertile ones are taken away, each hen 
may be given a full complement of eggs, and one or two hens 
which will thus be left without any may be put on a new nest 
of eggs. The energy of the hens in the work of incubation is 
thus economised, whilst the infertile eggs are boiled and 
chopped up, shells included, as food for the ducklings during 
the first week of their active life. The period of incubation of 
ducks’ eggs is, as is well known, 28 days. The Aylesbury duck 
is the variety exclusively bred in the district. 
Inasmuch as the principal object in view is to get the duck- 
lings fat for sale by the time they are eight or nine weeks old, 
the management from the moment the young birds emerge from 
the shell is directed solely to this end. For the first week after 
hatching the ducklings remain with the hen, their food during this 
period consisting of boiled egg and of toast soaked in water — of 
the latter they are specially fond. This food may be continued 
for a few days after the hen has been taken away, but it 
is gradually replaced by boiled rice. Only good qualities of 
rice — Rangoon or stained Japan, such as will become gela- 
tinous in boiling — -are used, the price being about 10s. per cwt. 
Later on, barley-meal and toppings (or sharps) are introduced 
into the diet, and at five weeks old the ducklings are put upon 
fattening food, an important constituent of which is greaves or 
tallow scrap — sometimes called scrap-cake — which is the refuse 
from tallow-chandlers’ factories, and costs abont 14s. per cwt, 
