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A LIFE INCOME FROM WILD
WATER FOWL
By FRANK G. M O O R H E A D
B E C A U S E he kept his eyes open,
even when he was hunting
amusement, Clyde B. Terrell, a
22-year-old farm boy of Wisconsin,
is assured a good income
for life from a hitherto neglected
source.
Twenty years ago the first specimens
of wild celery were brought to Wisconsin
by Mr. Terrell's father, John Terrell,
from Chesapeake Bay. There was no
thought in the elder Terrell's mind of
ever developing the wild-celery industry.
He was a Nature lover and he knew,
by long observation, that the wild celery
plant attracts certain kind of wild game
birds more than anything else. He
transplanted the wild celery in order to
stock the marshes and ponds along the
Fox River, where he located, with game
birds.
The boy proved to be more practical
than his father. Sitting in the tall reeds
and rushes along the edges of the Butte
des Morts marshes and bayous, with his
father as his teacher and companion, the
boy began to realize the immense commercial
possibilities of the rankly-growing
weed-grass which attracted the canvasbacks,
redheads, widgeons, bluebills
and other water fowls to the region in
such great number. That his ideas were
practical is evidenced by the fact that no
longer ago than last November the 22year-old
Wisconsin boy went back to
New York to supervise the planting of a
game preserve on the 40,000-acre estate
of W. A. Harriman, son of the late railroad
magnate, E. H. Harriman. On this
estate, wild ducks, Canadian geese, deer
and other game are being established in
large number. The young Wisconsin lad
was sent for because he had inexhaustible
quantities of the wild celery and
knew its value in luring certain kinds of
956
ducks to creeks and ponds of the rich
man's estate.
From a little handful of Chesapeake
Bay seed scattered over the waters, the
wild celery of the Fox River has spread
over a vast area until today there is an
inexhaustible supply. Mr. Terrell explains
its value in this manner:
"Thousands of wild ducks and other
water fowls will come to your marshes,
ponds, lakes, rivers or overflowed lowlands,
if you plant the natural food they
love. Careful study proved to me that
the following are among the very best
and most attractive foods for wild water
fowl: duck potato or wapatoo, wild rice,
wild celery, peppergrass, water cress,
and so on. Not all of these foods are
eaten by all kinds of ducks. For instance,
wild rice is a food of the marsh
ducks, mallards, teal and pintails; while
wild celery is a food of the diving or
deep-water ducks, like the canvasback,
redhead and bluebill. By planting the
proper quantities of the various foods
wild water fowl can be attracted and
maintained at almost any place desired."
It is to this work, in an untrodden
field, that Mr. Terrell has set himself,
with pecuniary profit and personal honors
already achieved. On the celery
which grows wild, in profusion, on his
father's farm, seed-bearing pods appear
during the late summer or early autumn.
The young man gathers these and finds
a ready market for them among hunting
clubs and sportsmen generally. The wild
celery is a perennial plant, sending out
runners in all directions, like a strawberry
plant. A bushel and a half of seed
planted to an acre of marsh land or
bayou will insure a steady supply of the
very food which the canvasback duck
and other wild water fowl crave, and
attract these game birds inevitably.