PO UL TR T- CRAFT. 249 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Geese. 



376. Conditions of Profitable Goose Culture. The goose, like the 

 turkey, is a fowl for those who can give it room, and is generally made profit- 

 able only where it can pick the most of its living. While geese cannot be 

 advantageously kept in close confinement, they are not rovers like turkeys. 

 They are contented on a comparatively small range, and easily kept within the 

 bounds allotted them. Geese are grazers. Grass and weeds, when they can 

 be had, form the greater part of their food. Given a dry place to sleep in, 

 they can live and thrive on low marshy ground suitable only for water fowls. 



Goose growing is nowhere in this country carried on as an exclusive 

 business ; nor is it carried on extensively except in a few localities near New 

 York and Boston, and by a few large breeders of thoroughbred poultry. In 

 most places geese are rare in comparison with other fowls, and though they 

 come in large quantities to some of the big western cities, the demand for 

 them is relatively light. The fact is that outside of the eastern localities 

 alluded to, most of the geese sent to market are of rather inferior quality, and 

 the reputation of u goose" meat is about on a par with that of " duck " where 

 really good ducks are unknown. Even in the cities where the supply of first 

 class geese is best, the demand for them is small as compared with the demand 

 for chickens, turkeys, or even ducks. Still the present supply of good stock 

 does not equal the demand, and one situated favorably for raising geese near 

 one of these markets would, if reasonably successful, make a very good profit 

 on as many as he could conveniently manage. Even in favored localities 

 growers generally do not think it advisable or practicable to attempt growing 

 geese on such a scale as chickens and ducks are produced. In most places 

 growing geese for market ought to be undertaken only when the conditions 

 are such that, whatever the income from them, it is nearly all profit.* 



* NOTE. It may be said here, as was said of ducks, that a good product will gradually 

 create a better demand; but geese cannot be successfully grown in confinement, as 

 ducks are, and one who could give them room for exercise but not for pasture, and was 

 therefore at expense in feeding them, would introduce and create a demand for good geese 

 only to find that as soon as there was an evident demand, persons conveniently situated 

 for keeping geese without cost would supply it at prices with which he could not com- 

 pete. It will undoubtedly pay those who now keep poor geese anywhere with some 

 profit, to get better geese ; and many people who do not keep geese at all could do so 

 with profit. The poultryman who is crowded for room had better let geese alone. 



