April 2, ld08.] Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W. 275 



III connection with this variety of waterfowl, they were always held in 

 hii^li appreciation in England, the price in the early days being worth noting. 



In 1450, the Mayor of Rochester gave an entertainment to King Edward 

 IV, on Michaelmas Day, and paid for " one gose and two pigges xviii d ". 

 Stowe, in his " London," 1616 edition, says that in 1331, the price- 

 of a fat goose was fixed at 2kl., a fat capon •2d., a fat hen Id., and 24 

 eggs Id. 



In the reign of Richard II, 1377, like most other commodities, the price 

 of a goose was fixed,— the best goose 6d., a mallard 3d. The price evidently 

 did not alter much for the following hundred years, for at the Candlemakers'' 

 Feast, 1478, the cost of a goose was put down at 6d. From that period they 

 gradually got higher in price, until early in the nineteenth century, when 

 the annual value of the goose and its progeny was reckoned to be equal to 

 that of a ewe sheep, and sold at the same market price. 



Goose-breeding became a great English industry, jiarticularly in the fens, 

 where some rearers produced as many as from 5,000 to 8,000 every season. 

 Of late, however, the huge flocks which were onetime driven by slow stages 

 to the great goose fairs are getting smaller every year. The importations to 

 England are also falling off, and the prices becoming lower, through the 

 change of taste in favour of the foreign rival, the turkey. 



The goose, which for ages was associated with Michaelmas, is now scarcely 

 heard of at that term, while the demand for the Christmas goose, of later 

 years, has disappeared to an extent that the breeding of such in England can 

 now scarcely be called an industry. The huge flocks of thirty or more years 

 ago have entirely disappeared, — goose-breeding now being done but in a 

 comparatively small way, and principally on the agricultural farms of 

 England. 



On this subject a practical English poultry breeder writes: — "The main 

 cause for this depression is no doubt a change of fashion on the part of the 

 public. People now prefer the turkey, and the demand for these birds at 

 Christmas is excessive, while that for geese is rapidly decreasing ; and those 

 who do now indulge in the time-honored goose at that festive season, usually 

 prefer a medium-sized, meaty, rather than fatty specimen. ' Common" lands 

 where people used to run flocks of geese, have been enclosed, and fens and 

 other marshy places drained, and converted into rich farm lands. Many 

 peasants or cottagers therefore, who at one time could run quite largt> 

 flocks of geese for next to nothing, are now debarred from doing so. 

 Not so many years ago, many flocks of geese were kept entirely for their 

 feathers, and were plucked four or five times a year. This ci-uel practice 

 has happily been put down, and with the suppression goose-keeping was 

 given \\\) by many. The feathers are not so valuable as they once were, 

 owing, no doubt, to the fact tliat the spring mattress has been found to be 

 more hygienic than the feather-bed, which, however', still graces the ' best 

 bed-room' of many respectable houses in our rural districts.'" 



