Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1904-05-20
QUACk! QUACk QUACk +!
A NeighbarhOod Where This Is The
Ever Peryading SOund--.ihe Such
As Was Never Heard Till Now.


As Was Never Heard Till Now.
(Staff Correspondence of the SPECTATOR
With quack. quack, qpacking |
from the loud mouths of 90, 900 ducks, |
| was aroused from sleep early ore
morning at about the hour of dawn.
After few restless turns | crept 20
the open window and lowered il, but
the all pervading sonnd rose in volume
until it seemed to fill the atmosphere.
II filtered through the wallis, it oozed
through the key hole--there was no
escaping it, SO | gave up the snooz
and turned out to Investigate tine cause
of all this cOmmOtion. The evening
before | had arrived in the picturesque
village of Riverton, Va, at the forks
of the Shenandoah river and after a
walk Of some minutes up that stream
was dOmiciled for the night at a home
On its banks. Next morning the sight
that met my wondering gaze was novel
in the extreme. Before me lay the
large buildings and spreading acres of
a duck farm, or anch, where ducks
by the hundred, by the thousand and
by the tens of thousand are raised-a
farm of eighteen acres given over for
the exclusive purpose of raising these
fowls. The ducks were all of the snow
white Pekin variety, with not dark
feather among the whole bunch of
them. 1t was great sight to see them
wave up to the feeding troughs and as
compactly recede at the too near ap-
proach of a stranger. Never scattering
but always moving en- masse, an un-
dulating, animated mass of white flut-
ter-and web footed patter.
Not all the livery stables in Staun-
ton consume the quantity of feed that
is daily devoured by this army of hun
cry fowls. Last year they consumed
6, 200 bushels of corn, So tons of chop
! ped beef scrap, four times that much
of bran, mIddlings and -four, 80 tons of
chopped hay, 60 tons of green clover,
rye and oats, "a tons of prepared clover,
5 tons of crushed oyster shells and 9th
err items of large expenditure that
had not the time or patience to take
down-sufiice it that the stuff comes
,, in carload lots and arrives every week
in large cnnsighments, sometimes fill
ing sid track with a long line of
loaded cars. Besides ali this the farm
itself produces much that goes to help
feed the multitude of ravenous mouths.
The first great division of this ex-
pensive family l found in the nursery
"a two story, steam heated building
nearly 800 feet long. III it were 1000
young baby ducks, with not a mother
among them-all were orphans-the
hapless offspring of many incubators,
that Increased the family of hatchlings
500 each day. For starter that
sounds like "a big one,' but people
who stay at home must not nitrate
over the wonders that are abroad in
the land Those of us who knock
about bit are pretty we'll convinced
that most anything is possible and
have ceased to wonder.
i Mr.. j. W. Morgan, the founder and
owner of this wonderful ranch will,
think, bear me out in most of the state
ments am here making. Many years
ago Mr.. Morgan began raising ducks
in small way, only giving such time te
it as he could spare from other business
but becoming interested and seeing its
larger possibilities he laid aside every
other duty and threw his entire per
sonalty into the enterprise. This wal
in 1899-and in the five years since hi
has developed possibly the largest bus
mess Of its kind in the coun try. Last
year--if mistake not-he shipped more
dressed ducks than any other concern
in the United States, his sales reach
ing the enormous total of 80, SOB fowls.
This year his prospects are as good.
if not better. With forty one incuba.
tors at work bringing into life hun
dreds of ducks every day, it can easily
be imagined what a swarm of them
there would be after two months
Matching season. The nursery, where
these thousands are kept, looks like
the enormous barn of some of our
wealty Valley farmers, only it is two
| or three times as long, and is divided
off int departments, each for the va
rylng sizes of the ducks as they grow
| older and stronger. A forty horse
power boiler furnishes steam heat for
the whole building. The heat can
therefore be regulated in each depart
ment according to the weather and the
needs of the fowls
When l found Mr.. Morgan he was
at home among his thousands of little
| ones. Said he, when the ducks come
from the incubators they are kept in
the junior department for a week,
| where the thermometer registers 80 to
IS degrees. At the end of that time
they are promoted to another room
where the heat is reduced 5 degrees,
and so each week they are driven from
room to room, each 5 degrees cooler
than the one proceeding, until the
fowls are six weeks old, at which time
they are turned into open pens where
are long sheds under which they can
huddle at night, or when the weather
is coOl''
And so it seemed, for as we progress
ed from department to department the
ducks were appreciably larger, till in
the open sheds or lots we saw the full
grown young duck. His method of
feeding is reducsd to science, and