i094 



PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Pari III. 



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 thev 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, favourably situated, allow them any thing more, ex. 

 cepting 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 even- 

 ing, 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, lucerne, tares, and occasionally sliced carrots. 

 By such full keeping his geese were ever in a fieshy 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 greese-tub 

 style, to admit even the ideas of delicacy, tender firmness, or true flavour; but when needful to fatten 

 them, the feeding-houses already recommended for hens (7474.^ 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 skim-milk, geese will fatten pleasantly and 

 speedily. 



7517. Feathers. Pennant, in describing the methods used in Lincolnshire in managing geese, says, 

 " They arq plucked five times in the year ; first at Lady.day for the feathers and quills, and lour 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. This seems a cruel practice, and surely would be 

 better left off. Lean geese furnish the greatest quantity of down and feathers, and of the best quality. 



7518. The mute or tame swan (Cygnus mansuetus L.,fig. 942.) has long been known 



in England, but is only found wild in Rus- 

 sia and Siberia. It has been preserved by 

 the severity of the laws, which have long 

 accounted it felony to steal their eggs. For- 

 merly they were fattened at Norwich for the 

 city feast, and commanded a guinea each. 

 The foot of the swan possesses nearly the 

 same property as that of the goose ; and the 

 skin was formerly held to contain medical 

 properties. At present swans are chiefly to 

 be considered as ornamental in pleasure- 

 grounds, clearing water from weeds, and 

 occasionally affording cygnet and some swan down feathers and quills. It is a curious 

 circumstance that the ancients considered the swan as a high delicacy, and abstained from 

 the flesh of the goose as impure and indigestible. 



7519. Other species are, first, the swan goose {A. cygnG'ides L.). This is of an intermediate size between 

 the tame swan and the common goose, with the last of which they will breed ; and although they vary 

 considerably in their colours, the species is always known by a knob on the bill The two others which 

 have been domesticated with us are the Canadian and the Egyptian species. The first is equally valuable 

 with the common goose, and is very ornamental in ponds ; the latter is now become very rare. The black 

 swan, once considered a prodigy, is abundant in various parts of New Holland or Australia. 



7520. Rearing. The swan feeds like the goose, and has the same familiarity with its keepers, kindly 

 and eagerly receiving bread which is oflfered, although it is a bird of courage equal to its apparent pride, 

 and both the cock and hen are extremely dangerous to approach during incubation, or whilst their brood 

 is young, as they have sufficient muscular force to break a man's arm with a stroke of their wing. They 

 both labour hard in forming a nest of water plants, long grass, and sticks, generally in some retired part 

 or inlet of the bank of the stream or piece of water on which they are kept. The hen begins to lay in 

 February, producing an egg every other day until she has deposited seven or eight, on which she sits six 

 weeks, although Buffian says it is nearly two months before the young are excluded. Swans' eggs are 

 much larger than those of a goose, white, and with a hard and sometimes tuberous shell. The cygnets 

 are ash-coloured when they first quit the shell, and for some months after; indeed they do not change 

 their colour, nor begin to moult their plumage, until twelve months old, nor assume their perfect glossy 

 whiteness until advanced in their second year. 



7521. Feathers and down. Where the living swan is plucked, only the ripe down should be taken from 

 each wing, and four or five feathers. This may be repeated to the extent of three times in the course of 

 a summer. 



7522. The bustard (O^tis tdrda L., Jig. 942.) is a native of England, the largest indi- 

 genous land bird in Europe, the cock generally weigh- 

 ing from twenty-five to twenty-seven pounds. The 

 neck a foot long ; the legs a foot and a half. It flies 

 with some little difficulty. The head and neck of the 

 cock ash-coloured ; the back barred transversely with 

 black and bright rust colour. The greater quill fea- 

 thers black, the -belly white; the tail, consisting of 

 twenty feathers, marked with broad black bars : it has 

 three thick toes before, and none behind. 



7523. Three species of bustard are found in England ; that 

 called the little bustard [0. tfetrax) differs chiefly in size, not 

 being larger than a pheasant. Bustards were known to the an- 

 cients in Africa, and in Greece and Syria ; are supposed to live 

 about fifteen years ; are gregarious, and pair in spring, laying 

 only two eggs, nearly of the size of a goose egg, of a pale olive 

 brown, marked with spots of a darker hue. They sit about five 

 weeks, and the young ones run, like partridges, as soon as deli- 

 vered from the shell. The cocks will fight until one is killed or 

 falls. Their flesh has ever been held most delicious : they are 



