GEESE. 377 



many benefits we derive from it in divers ways. Those 

 who live in the fen countries of Lincolnshire look to the 

 produce of their flocks, in the shape of quills and fea- 

 thers, exclusive of the body considered as an article of 

 food, as a source of profit to them almost as great as 

 the shepherd derives from his flocks and herds. These 

 Geese are reared and protected with a care and attention 

 of which those who have not witnessed it can form no 

 conception. 



It may, indeed, be doubted whether under certain cir- 

 cumstances, Geese, in a profitable point of view, may not 

 be considered as nearly equal to sheep. The latter, it 

 is true, furnish a lucrative trade to weavers and manu- 

 facturers, as well as the farmer who feeds them ; but the 

 Goose affords no small item in the ledger of the uphol- 

 sterer and the stationer, as well as the poulterer, in 

 addition to thousands of acres of marsh land, which, but 

 for this useful bird, would remain for ever worthless, or 

 at best, supply a scanty and precarious pittance. A 

 slight sketch of the mode of managing a flock in Lincoln- 

 shire, may not be uninteresting. A single person will 

 keep a thousand old Geese, each of which will rear 

 seven; so that, at the end of the year, if fortunate in 

 rearing, he will be possessed of seven thousand. During 

 the breeding season, these birds are lodged in the same 

 houses with their owners, and even in their bed-cham- 

 bers; three rows of wicker pens are placed one above 

 another in every department; each Goose having its 

 separate lodge divided from the others, of which it keeps 

 possession during the time of sitting. A person called 

 a gozzard attends the flock, and twice a day drives the 

 whole to water, then brings them back to their habita- 

 tions, helping those that live in the upper stories to 

 their nests, without ever misplacing a single bird. They 

 are, as we have observed in treating of Feathers (p. 70,) 

 plucked frequently, we believe not less than five times a 

 ypar; the first plucking being on Lady-day, for feathers 

 and quills; the remaining pluckings, between that time 



