Ill] OF GEESE 307 



4 When a goose has brought off her chicks, they are 

 left with the mother for the first five days. After- 

 wards every day when it is fine they are taken to the 

 meadows and also to ponds or marshes, and pens 

 are made for them above or under the ground, where 

 not more than twenty chickens at a time are put; 

 care being taken that the floors of these chambers 

 are not damp, that they are provided with a soft bed 

 of straw or something else, and that weasels cannot 

 get at the chickens or any other animals harm them. 



5 Geese are fed in damp places, and for their food a 

 crop is sown ' on which the farmer may make some 

 profit [apart from these birds] while [especially] for 

 them is sown the herb called seris (endive), for 

 even when dried up, if it is moistened with water it 

 grows green again. The leaves are plucked off and 

 given to the geese, as there is danger, if you drive 

 them to where it is growing, that they will ruin it by 

 trampling it under foot, or themselves die of a sur- 

 feit — for they are gluttons by nature. And so you 

 must restrain them, for often when feeding if they 

 have got hold of a root they want to pull out of 



comes from Germany where the geese are smallish and are 

 called gatiBoe. This down is worth five denarii (3J. 3^.) a 

 pound. And so luxurious have we become that not even men 

 can do without it under their necks," etc. 



* Serunt. Varro is here even more elliptical than himself; 

 but the meaning of the passage is fixed by Columella (vlii, 14, 

 2): "A marshy but at the same time grassy piece of land 

 should be assigned them, and various crops should, be sown 

 such as vetch, trefoil, and fenugreek, but especially a variety 

 of endive called by the Greeks okpi^. 



