The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1908-05-03
HAS Big FROG RANCH


catch most of the frogs for shipping
When an order comes in l put on rubber
boots. short skirt, and jumper and go
to work.
when possible this work is done at
night with a lantern and a large reflector
in boat AS the boat is pushed from
place TO place the light is thrown on the
water and the inquisitive frogs come up.
They are very quick, and it requires
no little skill TO be good frog catcher
The chief secret Is in putting the net over
instead OF under the frog and letting him
jump into il. The inexperienced catcher
will invariably slip The net Under the
frog and of course he is always in the
act OF jumping, SO ont he goes.
ION every frog ranch I believe It is the
custom TO play this practical joke on the
tenderfoot who comes to the ranch long
ing to catch a few frogs Last summer
while a party OF friends were visiting me
one of my best customers from San Fran
cisco came out TO see my ranch. lie pro-
posed a frog dinner and I readily agreed
provided he would catch the frogs.
He was delighted with the ideG and set
out in the boat with a net while my
friends and I remained under the trees
on the bank to look on. II was nice and
cool in the shade. but on the water /
knew from experience that the sun was
uncomfortably warm.
COuEdn't Land the Game.
There was an abundance Of frogs in
sight, and that man worked hard, but
at the end of two hours he hadn't landed
one. Observation didn't seem to teach
him a thing At every try we watched
that net go under instead of over the
frog.
"One of my friends declared that the
frogs enjoyed the exercise and often
came back to do it over again. Thinking
two hours was long enough. I took his
place and in ten minutes had two dozen
fine big fellows. Though we had the
frog dinner he didn't have the satisfae-
lion of saying he had caught them.
when the frogs bury themselves in the
muddy bottoms Of the ponds the only
thing to do is to drain of the water and
go after them. That is the way We have
To do when We are changing them. put
ting the young ones when they grow te
a sufficient size with their older relatives
when frogs are TO be shipped to any
great distance they must be put in bar
rels with plenty Of green moss and the
water changed daily, They must he fed,
of course and the best food so far as
have discovered is oatmeal and liver or
oatmeal and dried blood.
In this way I have shipped frogs en-
tirely across the continent with little. al
most TO loss. Unless my memory fails
me I think the death rate was about
two TO the hundred. A frogs natural life
is about twelve years. and as I was not
sure about the age Of each individual Of
that shipment IL may have been that
those two had reached the natural length
OF their days.
Il look upon frog raising as an ideal
occupation for women vino are fond of
out-of-door life. I should advise them.
however, 10 begin on a small scale snd
learn the business for themselves, trust
ing as little as possible 10 employees
Demand Exceeds supply.
so far as my own experience goes I
have always had demands for a dozen
times as many frogs as I could supply.
The demand is increasing in spite OF the
fact that new froggeries have been start
ed up all around me, and all are making
money. Once the ponds are made and
stocked the expense Of raising the frogs
doesn't amount to 81 a year outside OF
keeping the fences i'm order and changing
the little ones as they increase in size.
so far as handling them. there is alb
solutely nothing to which the most fas-
tidious could object. They are beautifully
clean little creatures and perfectly harm,
less.
a few days after we moved in I was
awakened early one morning by the gar
dener and invited to come out and look
at the frogs. It seemed as II the whole
place was covered with them. They had
climbed the banks and were OF on their
travels We were kept busy the entire
morning sweeping them up with brooms
and dustpans and dumping them back
into the ponds where they belonged.
The pools Of my tadpOles are never
more than a foot deep and have cement
covered bottoms The frog ponds are
deeper and the bottoms are covered with
mud in which the frogs bury themselves
during the winter.
"All my pools and ponds are so per-
fectIy drained that an overflow Is quite
impossible and in case II becomes neces-
sary all the water can be let OF within
a few minutes. They are all, ponds and
pools. covered with a green lacewOrk Of
aIgae so thick as 10 resemble one IN
broken mass. but the water under this
growth Is fresh.