is not good to let young ducks out in
the morning to eat _slugs_ and _worms_; for, though they like them, these
things kill them if they eat a great quantity. Grass, corn, white
cabbages, and lettuces, and especially buck-wheat, cut, when half ripe,
and flung down in the haulm. This makes fine ducks. Ducks will feed on
garbage and all sorts of filthy things; but their flesh is _strong_, and
bad in proportion. They are, in Long Island, fatted upon a coarse sort of
_crab_, called a horse-foot fish, prodigious quantities of which are cast
on the shores. The young ducks grow very fast upon this, and very fat; but
wo unto him that has to _smell_ them when they come from the spit; and, as
for _eating_ them, a man must have a stomach indeed to do that!

170. When young, they should be fed upon barley-meal, or _curds_, and kept
in a warm place in the night-time, and not let out _early_ in the morning.
They should, if possible, be kept from water to _swim_ in. It always does
them harm; and, if intended to be sold to be killed _young_, they should
never go near ponds, ditches, or streams. When you come to fat ducks, you
must take care that they get at _no filth_ whatever. They will eat garbage
of all sorts; they will suck down the most nauseous particles of all those
substances which go for manure. A dead rat three parts rotten is a feast
to them. For these reasons I should never eat any ducks, unless there were
some mode of keeping them from this horrible food. I treat them precisely
as I do my geese. I buy a troop when they are young, and put them in a
pen, and feed them upon oats, cabbages, lettuces, and water, and have the
place kept very clean. My ducks are, in consequence of this, a great deal
more fine and delicate than any others that I know any-thing of.

TURKEYS.

171. These are _flying_ things, and so are _common fowls_. But it may
happen that a few hints respecting them may be of use. To raise turkeys in
this chilly climate, is a matter of much greater difficulty than in the
climates that give great warmth. But the great enemy to young turkeys (for
old ones are hardy enough) _is the wet_. This they will endure in _no
climate_; and so true is this, that, in America, where there is always "_a
wet spell_" in April, the farmers' wives take care never to have a brood
come out until that spell is passed. In England, where the wet spells come
at haphazard, the first thing is to take care that young turkeys never go
out,