FLESH FOOD FURNISHED BY THE FEATHERED TRIBES, 175 



trade of the great Norfolk dealers resolves itself into 

 two branches — the green geese and the Michaelmas. 

 In March and April they begin to get in their gosling 

 supplies from farmers or cottagers near the commons, in 

 both these counties. Most of these goslings are about 

 five weeks old, and many of them in very poor plight ; 

 but six or seven weeks of feeding under stages, on 

 barley-meal, maize, wheat-tailingB, and brewers' grains 

 mixed, make them all ripe for the green-goose market. 



The Michaelmas geese take their places under the 

 stages in August ; and Norfolk and Suffolk are pretty 

 well scoured before the dealers fall back upon the Irish, 

 French, and Dutch supplies. The Dutch, which are 

 principally grey, come from Rotterdam ; and one of the 

 largest Norwich dealers imports occasionally seventeen 

 tons' weight of live birds in the year. They come over 

 by steamers and sailing vessels, packed in big flat 

 baskets, but not to any great extent after the 1st of 

 October. In the dealers' hands they are fed on the 

 same principle as ducks — low fare to begin with, and 

 then on a gradually-ascending scale. The goose-pens 

 of Messrs. Boyce, of Stratford, are capable of holding 

 four thousand geese for fattening. 



On the western moors of Cornwall everyone keeps 

 geese ; and they are bought up by jobbers in thousands, 

 for the stubbers. Summer Court, on September 25th, is 

 the " goose fair " of the county. Farmers all over England 

 are supplied very largely both from Holland and Ireland. 

 Geese are extensively bred in Moravia; and the hilly 

 districts in Germany and HoUand are peopled by numer- 

 ous goose-farmers, who get their living entirely by them. 

 The Hussenheim goose market is a very large one, and of 

 great antiquity ; and, according to local tradition, the 

 town owes its name to the bird of its choice. The Dutch 

 hucksters buy goslings from the cotters — who, like the 

 burghers, are remarkable for turning the penny the right 

 way— at prices varying from Is. 6d. to 2s. They are 

 driven to Rotterdam, where they are packed up in crates, 

 which are capable of holding about fifty or sixty each. 



