bichon a on fallening geese. > Nov: r4e 
single fhoot when they fall down dead. When the goslings 
are one or two months old, they join the goose and gan- 
der which had been preserved for producing eggs, and go 
without any conductor to seek food in the neighbouring pas- 
‘tures, and along the rivulets. ‘They return at night to their 
home ; and the good managers take care to give them let- 
tuce, cabbage, groundsel, and grains of wild oats. ‘There is 
a very great consumption of these birds,—since, from the ~ 
month of June till the month of October, there are con- 
sumed in the single city of Toulouse, 120,000, which are 
sold, for the most part, divided into, quarters; the gibletg 
are sold again separately. The price of a goose three or 
four months old, is from twenty to forty sols, [halfpence.] 
After the harvest they find plenty of food in the fields, either 
in corn, or the seeds of wild plants ; and afterwards in the 
’ threfhed straw, where they carefully seek out the grains that 
have been left. After the first frosts of November, they 
must be fed for a month with some care. To make them 
get into flefh, they give them bruised herbs and riddlings - 
of corn. As for me; I have found them fatten’ better on 
potatoes, raw’ or boiled, which they eat with avidity. 
After the bird has got into good flefh, it is necefsary 
not to delay the fattening of them too long, lest you lose 
the season entirely. About the end of December they 
enter into rut, after which time they will not fatten at all. 
As soon as the frost has set in, they are fhut up, to the 
number of ten or twelve, (never more,) in a dark place, 
where they neither can see light, nor hear the cries of 
those which are kept for laying. They remain in that 
prison till they have attained the greatest degree of fat- 
nefs, and are ready for killing ;—that moment. must: be 
seized, otherwise they would very soon turn lean, and at 
last die. 
