The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1898-01-11

A NEW ENGLAND duck FAC
TORY"

@4@ AS&S@ $780,
correspondence of The Progressive Farmer.
At this season of the year when
everybody is eating ducks and geese,
would a man with an inclination for
the poultry business like to be piloted
through an Eastern duck factory9 If
80, come with the writer, and he will
show him that modern Yankee ingenu-
ity has produced results in the world
of incubation thatRcarcely falls behind
In it's actual results the widest imagi-
nation of the author of fiction. Indeed,
had a writer fifty years ago described
with his pen what n may now see
any day in the spring, summer or au
tumn on a large duck raLch, his fancy
might well have been called diseased.
The writer would wish to be distinct
~ understood as not claiming for the
Yankee originality in the matter Of
artificial incubation. Far from it. He
wishes simply to make plain, if possible,
I the part the American has taken In
simplifying the process and adapting
it &c the needs of the producer and con.
sumner Of to-day. Indeed, here, as in
many another field, it is a hard task to
trace who was the original one, and
here the hunt ends, as the writer sus
poets it does in many another case,
where musty records fail to exist and
conjecture stalks in. 1t Is known that
the art il and has been practIced by
the Egyptians for years, and since
they are a people who never invent,
but hand down in unbroken succession
the achievements of their forefathers,
It is fair to presume that it existed in
the time of the first of the Pharoahs.
Indeed, may we not dare to suspect
that the little story of Moses in the bull
rushes wac a primeval suggestion Of
the modern baby incubator7
The West surpasses the East in vast
n and grain fields, mighty herds of
sleek and well:fed cattle, and swine
without number, that are so fat that
they may be rolled over and over al
most as easily IS can the pork barrel
after they are in it; but the East can,
the writer thinks, lay claim GO the lead
in artificial incubation as applied to
ducks. Massachusetts has, probably,
eight or ten large plants, the output Of
which generally averages from three to
eleven thousand birds each year, from
June first to December first.
Let US walk in on the proprietor of
one of these duck factories about the
first of June, and see what we may
see, and take a lesson, not in magic, as
it may well seem at first sight, but in
actual scientific business where no less
tact, judgment, attention to detail and
executive ability are required than in
other vast manufacturing establish
ments OF the city. the writer does
not mean to imply that there are hun
dreds of men, women and children en-
ployed here. No, by no means, for
mans invention has enabled n per
son in this field of Effort to do what ten,
or perhaps twenty used to be able to
accomplish, az well as it has In other
industries.
When you are in the presence Of the
proprietor of one of these large ranches,
if they may be so called, you will lock
in vain for a trace of the ''hayseed" i n
his makeup. No, no; he is a man who
can give you points on keeping rec
ords OF temperature and moisture and
the instruments pertaining thereto, as
can the weather bureau man
The first lesson that you may learn is
in the Matching room, where there
should be kept an even temperature of
about 55 or so degrees, so that the in
cubators may not reflect in their egg
chambers the fluctuations Of the tenn
perature without the room.
On a large plant you may see ten Or
so machines or hatchers of from 400 to
600 egg capacity. These are filed one
by one from about the first of Febru
airy and n by n give forth a hetch
twenty-eight days after being filled.
By the first of March on a place where
$50 choice Pekin ducks are laying stock
are kept, there will be filled a 600 egg
machine about every three days. Uzu
ally, when of these large incuba
tors is filed, a very small one is also
filled with 20 OF 80 eggs, and on the
third day thereafter the eggs are tested
in the large incubator, and those in the
tender as the little one is termed, are
placed in the large hatcher, and thus
each large machine is kept running to
its fullest capacity. The testing out
process Is simply a separating of the
infertile eggs or those that have no