1046 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



well authenticated instances being on record to the extent of 70 and 80 years. The best 

 geese in England are probably to be found on the borders of Suffolk and Norfolk, and 

 in Berkshire ; but the greatest numbers are in Lincolnshire, whence they are sent in droves 

 to London to be fed by the poulterers, some of whom fatten in the vicinity of the metro- 

 polis above five thousand in a season. 



6747. Of varieties and species there are several, the former differing in color, as black, 

 white, and grey, and also in size. There is also the Spanish white goose, and large 

 white Embden goose, the latter in most esteem. When one has seen a wild goose, says 

 Pennant, a description of its plumage will, to a feather, exactly correspond with any 

 other. But in the tame kinds, no two of any species are exactly alike ; different in 

 their size, their colors, and frequently in their general form, they seem the mere crea- 

 tures of art ; and having been so long dependent upon man for support, they seem to 

 assume forms entirely suited to his necessities. 



6748. There is a Chinese species {A. cygnoides), and an American goose {A. cana- 

 densis). The Chinese species is a domestic bird, but as yet little known in this country. 

 It is longer and narrower in the body than the common goose, and stands higher on the 

 legs. The Canadian goose is domesticated in several places, and is not considered un- 

 common in England. It is the most ornamental of the goose kind on water in pleasure 

 grounds, and is abundant in the Duke of Devonshire's park at Chiswick. 



6749. Breeding. One gander is generally put to five geese : the goose lays from 

 eleven to fifteen eggs ; and the period of incubation is from twenty-seven to thirty days. 

 A nest should be prepared as soon as the female begins to carry straw in her bill, and 

 by other tokens declares her readiness to lay. This is generally in March, and some- 

 times two broods are produced within the season, an advantage obtainable by high feed- 

 ing through the winter with sound corn, and on the commencement of tlie breeding 

 season allowing them boiled barley, malt, fresh grains, and fine pollard mixed up with 

 ale or other stimulants. A good gander sits near his geese whilst they are sitting, and 

 vigilantly protects them. Feeding upon the nest is seldom required ; and it is unneces- 

 sary to take any of the goslings from the mother as hatched ; but pen the goose and her 

 brood at once upon dry grass well sheltered, putting them out late in the morning, or 

 not at all in severe weather, and ever taking them in early in the evening. The first 

 food may be similar to that recommended for the duck, such as barley meal, bruised 

 oats, or fine pollard, with some cooling green vegetables, as cabbage or beet leaves 

 intermixed. 



6750. Rearing. At first setting at liberty, the pasturage of the goose should be 

 limited, otherwise, if allowed to range over an extensive common, the gulls or goslings 

 will become tired and cramped, and some of them will fall behind and be lost. Mowbray 

 advises to destroy all the hemlock and nightshade in their range, and he says he has known 

 them killed by swallowing sprigs of yew. As the young become pretty well feathered, 

 they become also too large to be brooded beneath the mother's wing, and as they will 

 then sleep in groups by her side, they must be well supplied with straw beds, which 

 they will convert into excellent dung. Being able, says Mowbray, to frequent the 

 pond and range the common at large, the young geese will obtain their living, and few 

 people, favorably situated, allow them any thing more, excepting the vegetable produce 

 of the garden. But it has been his constant practice, always to dispense a moderate 

 quantity of any solid corn or pulse at hand, to the flocks of store geese, both morning 

 and evening, on their going out, and their return, together, in the evening more especially, 

 with such greens as chanced to be at command : cabbage, mangel-wurzel leaves, 

 lucern, tares, and occasionally sliced carrots. By such full keeping his geese were ever 

 in a fleshy state, and attained a large size ; the young ones were also forward and 

 valuable breeding stock. Geese managed on the above mode, will be speedily fattened 

 green, that is, at a month or six weeks old, or after the run of the corn stubbles. Two 

 or three weeks after the latter, must be sufficient to make them thoroughly fat. A goose 

 fattened entirely on the stubbles, is to be preferred to any other ; since an over-fattened 

 goose is too much in the oil-cake and grease-tub style, to admit even the ideas of deli- 

 cacy, tender firmness, or true flavor. But when needful to fatten them, the feeding- 

 houses already recommended for hens (6712.) are most convenient. With clean and 

 renewed beds of straw, plenty of clean water, oats, crushed or otherwise, pea or 

 bean meal (the latter, however, coarse and ordinary food), or pollard mixed up with 

 skimmed milk, geese will fatten pleasantly and speedily. 



6751. Feathers. Pennant, in describing the methods used in Lincolnshire in manag- 

 ing geese, says, " they are plucked five times in the year ; first at Lady-day for the 

 feathers and quills, and four times for the feathers only, between that and Michaelmas." 

 He says, he saw the operation performed on goslings of six weeks old, from which the 

 feathers of the tails were plucked, and that numbers die of the operation, if the weather 

 immediately afterwards proves cold. Lean geese furnish the greatest quantity of down 



