Not only the regular feeding four times a day requires his attention, but the simple mixing of seventy-five to one hundred bushels of feed each day is quite a little job of itself, especially when the different ingredients should be exact. The water tanks also must be regularly cleaned and filled. The troughs should be carefully cleaned before feeding, as the ducks will readily eat all foreign matter together with the food. In short, the whole business must be systematized all the way through, and the attendant should understand that it is never safe to neglect a single detail. [Illustration: OUR DOUBLE BROODING HOUSE. (South side.)] I had always made a point of doing this duty myself. A few years ago, not feeling well and having other business requiring my attention, I engaged a man whom I considered competent to do this business for me. I took him over the yards, showed and told him just how the thing must be done; watched him to see that he did the work faithfully and complied with all its details. Things went on apparently well for a week or two, when, going home one day, I noticed a number of dead ducklings lying around, and looking under the brooder I found quite a number more. I at once interviewed the man and cautioned him. He insisted that he had followed the instructions to the letter. But the mortality did not abate, on the contrary it increased to an alarming extent; and I had lost more ducklings in one month than I had lost for ten years previous. I watched him and found that the feeding-troughs were not cleaned at all, and when the birds scattered the sawdust in them the food was thrown on that, the ducklings consuming both. The food was thrown partly in the trough and partly on the ground; apparently a matter of perfect indifference to him. The water-tanks were not rinsed out. Instead of stepping over the eighteen-inch partition wires he stepped on them, breaking down the standards and flattening down the wire, so that the birds were all mixed together promiscuously,--ducklings two weeks old with those of six weeks. The little ones were trodden down by the older ones and almost denuded of their feathers, and there was no thrift to be seen anywhere. To say that I was indignant does not express it. I had often seen such a condition of things elsewhere, but not before on my own ranch; I was absolutely ashamed to show visitors around the yards as long as this state of things existed. [Illustration: OUR DOUBLE BROODING HOUSE. (North side.)]