169. No water, to _swim_ in, is necessary to the old, and is _injurious_ to the very young. They never should be suffered to swim (if water be near) till _more than a month old_. The old duck will lay, in the year, if _well kept_, ten dozen of eggs; and that is her best employment; for common hens are the best mothers. It 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.