VII.] GEESI. 103 



great deal better than those that are not loaved. This 

 is the food of my geese. They thrive exceedingly 

 upon this food. After we have had the flock about 

 ten days, we begin to kill, and we proceed once or 

 twice a week till about the middle of October, some- 

 times later. A great number of persons who have 

 eaten of these geese have all declared that they did 

 not imagine that a goose could be brought to be so 

 good a bird. These geese are altogether different 

 from the hard, strong things that come out of the 

 stubble fields, and equally different from the flabby 

 things called a green goose. I should think that the 

 cabbages or lettuces perform half the work of keep- 

 ing and fatting my geese ; and these are things that 

 really cost nothing. I should think that the geese, 

 upon an average, do not consume more than a shil- 

 ling's worth of oats each. So that we have these 

 beautiful geese for about four shillings each. No 

 money will buy me such a goose in London ; but the 

 thin^ that I can get nearest to it, will cost me seven 

 shillings. Every gentleman has a garden. That 

 garden has, in the month of July, a wagon-load, at 

 least, of lettuces and cabbages to throw away. No- 

 thing is attended with so little trouble as these geese. 

 There is hardly any body near London that has not 

 room for the purposes here mentioned. The reader 

 will be apt to exclaim, as my friends very often do, 

 " Cobbett's Geese are all Swans." Well, better that 

 way than not to be pleased with what one has. How- 

 ever, let gentlemen try this method of fatting geese. 

 It saves money, mind, at the same time. Let them 

 try it ; and if any one, who shall try it, shall find the 

 effect not to be that which I say it is, let him reproach 

 me publicly with being a deceiver. The thing is no 

 invention of mine. While I could buy a goose off 

 the common for half-a-crown, I did not like to give 

 seven shillings for one in London, and yet I wished 

 that geese should not be excluded from my house. 

 Therefore I bought a flock of geese, and brought them 

 home to Kensington. They could not be eaten all 

 at once. It was necessary, therefore, to fix upon a 



