There is a growing market for the young bass or fingerlings to stock
streams and ponds. The relation between the producer of stock fish
and those who expect to raise bass of a marketable size is about the
same as exists between the professional seed grower and the market
gardener. It is much better for the small farmer who has or can make
an artificial pond to buy his fingerlings from the professional
breeder, who has facilities which are too elaborate to be duplicated
on a small scale.
Fish culture, except under government auspices, is little known in
the United States.
_American Homes and Gardens_ has an account of the breeding of
pheasants, which is of interest. That it is possible to breed
pheasants, even around an ordinary suburban home, is shown by Mr.
Homer Davenport, the famous cartoonist, who succeeded in breeding
and raising some of the choicest pheasants on his place at Morris
Plains, New Jersey.
A great variety of species are commonly bred, but all of them came
from China or India. The pheasant can be tamed by careful handling,
but cats and dogs and other small animals must be kept away. The
pheasantry should be placed on high, well-drained ground with a
southern exposure, where the soil is good enough to raise clover,
oats, and barley. The quarters for pheasants and the management are
very much like those for fancy chickens. The yard should be inclosed
by wire netting both on sides and top to keep the birds from
wandering away; and there should be houses for roosting and breeding
with nesting quarters attached.
In Central Park, New York, the running space allotted to three or
four birds is not more than ten by twenty feet, and Mr. George
Ethelbert Walsh tells of a case where sixty pheasants were kept in
excellent condition in a house ten by fifty feet, with five yards
attached, averaging 10 X 25 feet. However, with pheasants, as with
all the bird family, especially turkeys, the more ground they have
for ranging the less liable they will be to disease. The chief
difficulty in breeding game birds like the pheasant is to secure the
insects, such as flies, maggots, and ant eggs, which are the natural
food of the young. Sufficient green food like lettuce, turnip tops,
cabbage, etc., must also be provided. There is always a market at
fancy prices for more of the matured birds than can possibly be
supplied.
Some people make money in breeding or training fancy birds like
canaries, mocking birds, finches, parrots, and so on; but this
industry can be carried on almost as well in rooms in the city as in
the country. Specializing on any kind of animal rearing must be gone
into with extreme caution, because in the breeding of animals there
are many factors to be dealt with which do not confront the breeder
of plants. Make haste slowly, and before branching out be sure that
you master each step in its turn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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