Transcriber's Note
The figure captions have been retained in the same order of appearanceas the plates in the original, but moved to follow the section whicheach illustrates. The list of illustrations has been adjusted accordingly.
Minor inconsistencies in spelling have been retained as in the original.Where typographical errors have been corrected and missing referencesadded, these are listed at the end of this book.
Frontispiece. General view of water yards and ducklings on a large Long Island duck farm. (Photographfrom the Bureau of Animal Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture.)DUCKS AND GEESE
BY
HARRY M. LAMON
SENIOR POULTRYMAN, BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
AND
ROB R. SLOCUM
POULTRYMAN, BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Authors of
"The Mating and Breeding of Poultry"
and "Turkey Raising"
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
ORANGE JUDD PUBLISHING COMPANY
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LIMITED
1922
Copyright, 1922, by
Orange Judd Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN U. S. A.[Pg v]
PREFACE
Of all lines of poultry keeping, duck raising isunique in that it lends itself to the greatest degreeof specialization and intensification along lineswhich are purely commercial. On a comparativelysmall area thousands of ducklings can be reared andmarketed yearly. The call for information concerningthe methods used by these commercial duckraisers has been considerable, and since such informationis not available in complete concise formthe present book has been prepared partly to furnishjust this information.
The methods used by successful Long Island duckraisers differ widely in some particulars and sincein the space at command, it has been impossible todescribe all the methods used, the plan has beenadopted of detailing in the main the methods of onesuccessful grower. This it is believed will prove tobe more helpful and less confusing than to attemptto give the method of several different men.
Much space has been given to the operations ofthe commercial duck raisers but the fact is recognizedthat the great bulk of the ducks entering into...