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his marsh was enclosed. Next he dug a ditch con. 
necting the potholes with the perimeter ditch, throw- 
ing the dirt on either side. 
During the spring he planted his dredge banks 
with wild 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 seepage 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 arrangement, 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 en- 
vied him! The marsh was full of lowland weeds 
laden with seeds when he turned on the water. May- 
be you think the ducks didn’t go for those seeds. It 
was like baiting with corn in the old days. Well, sir, 
“It 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 himself 
and one friend could also shoot there any time dur- 
ing 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 for those ducks. So he started to plant his 
marsh with natural foods. Around the banks he 
sowed smartweed and wild millet seeds. In the 
shallow waters he planted wild rice, and wapato duck 
potato, burreed, pickerel plants, wampee duck corn 
seed, water smartweed, 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 musk- 
rats 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 eating up the 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 
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