VII.] GEESE. 101 



bird called the bee-bird ; and to keep all clean and 

 fresh as to the hives and coverings. Never put a 

 swarm into an old hive. If wasps, or hornets, annoy 

 you, watch them home in the day time ; and in the 

 night kill them by fire, or by boiling water. Fowls 

 should not go where bees are, for they eat them. 



166. Suppose a man get three stalls of bees in a 

 year. Six bushels of wheat give him bread for an 

 eighth part of the year. -Scarcely any thing is a 

 greater misfortune than shiftlessness. It is an evil 

 little short of the loss of eyes or of limbs. 



GEESE. 



167. THEY can be kept to advantage only where 

 there are green commons, and there they are easily 

 kept ; live to a very great a^e ; and are amongst the 

 hardiest animals in the world. If well kept, a goose 

 will lay a hundred eggs in a year. The French put 

 their eggs under large hens of common fowls, to 

 each of which they give four or five eggs ; or under 

 turkies, to which they give nine or ten goose-eggs. 

 If the goose herself sit, she must be well and regu- 

 larly fed, at, or near to, her nest. When the young 

 ones are hatched, they should be kept in a warm 

 place for about four days, and fed on barley-meal, 

 mixed, if possible, with milk ; and then they will be- 

 gin to graze. Water for them, or for the old ones 

 to swim in, is by no means necessary, nor, perhaps, 

 ever even useful. Or, how is it, that you see such fine 

 flocks of fine geese all over Long Island (in America) 

 where there is scarcely such a thing as a pond or a 

 run of water? 



168. Geese are raised by grazing ; but to fat them 

 something more is required. Corn of some sort, or 

 boiled Swedish turnips. Some corn and some raw 

 Swedish turnips, or carrots, or white cabbages, or 

 lettuces, make the best fatting. The modes that are 

 resorted to by the French for fatting geese, nailing" 

 them down by their webs, and other acts of cruelty, 

 are, I hope, such as Englishmen will never think of, 



9* 



