262 FARMING FOR LADIES, [chap. xii. 



The goose is supposed to be as long-lived 

 as the swan, and numberless instances have 

 been recorded of their having outlived the age 

 of man. Moubray, indeed, mentions, as an 

 authenticated fact, that there was, in 1824, 

 a goose living in the possession of a Mr. 

 Hewson, of Glenham, in Lincolnshire, which 

 was then upwards of a century old. It 

 had been throughout that term, in the 

 constant possession of Mr. Hewson's fore- 

 fathers and himself; and, on quitting his 

 farm, he, with a feeling which does him 

 credit, would not suffer it to be sold with his 

 other stock, but made a present of it to the 

 incoming tenant — "that the venerable fowl 

 might terminate its career on the spot where 

 its useful life had been spent such a length of 

 days." 



Though stigmatised as being silly and 

 stupid, the reproach is unmerited. We once 

 had four for our own use, which were con- 

 stantly turned upon a neighbouring common, 

 at the distance of full a quarter of a mile, to 

 which they regularly walked through the vil- 

 lage, headed by the gander, calling at every 

 house, fi-om which the servants sometimes 



