GAME Breeder 
BEACON | 
Pellet-Fowum 7 
PHEASANT FEED 
For Greeders... 
Two basic BEACON feeds make 
it convenient for you to feed your 
breeders. BEACON Pheasant Grow- 
er Pellets, along with BEACON 
Turkey and Game Bird Fitting Ra- 
tion, fed in hoppers, should be kept 
before the birds at all times. 
Although satisfactory results may 
be obtained from mixing the two in 
equal amounts, we recommend 
strongly that they be fed in separate 
hoppers. 
About February Ist, change from 
BEACON Pheasant Grower Pellets 
to the handy pellet-form BEACON 
Turkey and Game Bird Breeder 
Ration. Continue the Fitting Ra- 
tion, and keep both before the birds 
at all times. 
TO CHANGE TO PELLET- 
FORM FEED, mix the newer form 
with the mash and put extra pellets 
before the birds in open troughs. 
In about a week the birds will eat 
readily—and will relish the pellets 
more than mash. 
The BEACON MILLING CO., INC. 


& Sportsman, for 
A Paying Preserve 
(Continued from page 14) 
had a sucker, for the marsh was no 
good at all. He sold it at a very rea- 
sonable price. 
Now the plumber had a marsh. The 
next thing was to build a dike. During 
the following winter months he built 
himself a ditch digger, a simple home 
made contraption, run by an old auto- 
mobile engine. While the marsh was 
still frozen over, he started to dig his 
dirt for the dike. The digging started 
about twenty-five feet in from the lake’s 
edge—his ditch on the inside and the 
dike toward the lake. It ran from the 
highway to the hill. Finally his marsh 
was enclosed. Next he dug a ditch con- 
necting the potholes with the perimeter 
ditch, throwing the dirt on either side. 
During the spring he planted his 
dredge banks with wild duck millet to 
bind the soil and also make food for the 
teal and mallards. ‘Throughout that 
summer the banks settled and became 
solid and firm. 
The next job was to get the water 
to flood his marsh. So he drove a pipe 
for a six-inch artesian flow. Only 
thirty feet into his marsh, but not 
enough to flood the area as he desired. 
However, it was sufficient to offset seep- 
age and evaporation. 
Now to get water out of the lake. 
To do this he had to dig a ditch from 
the lake to the dike, then build a water 
conveyor to lift water over the dike 
into the marsh. 
His conveyor was a crude arrange- 
ment, a wooden trough six feet long 
and one foot deep, extending from two 
feet beneath the water over the top of 
the dike. Into this was built a chain 
conveyor with boards about three feet 
apart, that caught the water and pushed 
it up the trough over the dike. “This 
was run by his same auto engine that 
dug the ditch for the dike. It worked 
very well. 
Another duck season was now at 
hand and talk about ducks—every duck 
hunter for fifty miles envied him! ‘The 
marsh was full of lowland weeds laden 
with seeds when he turned on the water. 
Maybe you think the ducks didn’t go 
for those seeds. It was just like baiting 
with corn in the old days. Well, sir, 
“Tt was so good that the local banker, 
the doctor, the lawyer and seven other 
businessmen leased the duck shooting 
rights for the next five years at $1,000 
per year, and wrote into the lease that 
he himstlf and one friend could also 
shoot there any time during the open 
season, free of charge, he to retain all 
fishing and trapping rights. 
This plumber knew that for this 
good shooting to continue he must do 
something to keep up the supply of food 
February, 
1945 
for those ducks. So he started to plant 
his marsh with natural foods. Around 
the banks he sowed smartweed and 
wild duck millet seeds. In the shallow 
waters he planted wild rice, and wapato 
duck potato, burreed, pickerel plants, 
wampee duck corn seed, water smart- 
weed, and others. Some he bought and 
some he took from their natural state 
in nearby marshes. In the potholes and 
ditches he planted wild celery, sago 
pondweed, deep water duck potato, 
and other kinds. ‘The waters were 
good, the soil rich, and “wow,” what 
results. 
During the summer he caught bass 
out in the big lake and kept them in his 
live box, and then turned them free in 
the potholes in his marsh. 
In the fall another problem came up. 
The muskrats invaded his marsh. It 
kept him busy patching the dikes. I 
believe his place actually coaxed in 
about half of the muskrats from the big 
lake. ‘There were so many that he had 
to buy windfall apples, carrots, and 
undersize potatoes and scatter them 
over the marsh to keep them from eat- 
ing up tht duck food he had planted the 
previous spring. 
Finally, after the fall duck season 
was nearly over, he started to trap the 
muskrats. Their pelts were now prime. 
Talk about a surprised man. He kept 
on trapping and every day his traps 
were full, it took him half the night to 
skin, clean, and stretch the furs. At 
the end of the season his figures added 
up to 2,800 muskrat pelts that brought 
in the handsome sum of $5,100. ‘This, 
plus his $1,000, was not so bad an in- 
come off a worthless marsh, and he was 
his own boss, doing the thing he liked. 
That’s not all the story. He quit 
his plumbing job and devoted all of 
his time to his marsh. He built cabins 
along the highway and the hunters paid 
for the use of these in the fall. In 
summer they were filled with fisher- 
men. ‘To the fishermen he also rented 
boats and averaged better than $5.00 
per day off his boats and cabins. 
The fish became plentiful in those 
ditches and potholes. Food and cover 
were abundant. The fish did not have 
to eat one another to survive. It seemed 
like all the young fish grew to maturity. 
That’s the end of my story of what 
happened to a worthless marsh. Some 
people thought it was a crazy idea that 
this plumber had conceived while think- 
ing in the quiet of his duck blind. As 
a matter of fact, he had a better job 
than the banker, the doctor, or lawyer 
in his small town. His income was 
equal to theirs and he loved his work. 
But don’t misunderstand me, he did 
work darn hard to get this thing going. 
Success was the reward for his toils. 
21 
