WATERFOWL 255 



keep a flock until spring in order to pick out the 

 geese and ganders. Lay the bird down on a board 

 and with the fingers you can press out the private 

 parts of the male. This is the only reliable test that 

 can be applied and is, of course, conclusive. 



THE GOOSE FATTENING BUSINESS 



This is carried on quite largely by poultry keepers 

 in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut. E. A. 

 Cornell of Rhode Island, who does the largest busi- 

 ness, thus speaks of his methods: "I fatten from 

 12,000 to 15,000 geese each season. I send out teams 

 to pick them up, and get them from the middle of 

 April to the last of September. They are from eight 

 to twelve weeks old when I begin to buy and will 

 weigh from seven to nine pounds early in the season 

 and later more. Through the summer I put about loo- 

 in a pen forty to fifty feet square. Corn, meal and 

 beef scraps is the feed used to fatten them. They are 

 fed three times a day and heaviest at night in warm 

 weather, as they will eat better in the cool of the day. 

 They are fed from four to seven weeks. They are- 

 picked all but neck and wings and packed in barrels 

 with ice, from fifteen to twenty-two in a barrel, accord- 

 ing to size. The average price received is sixteen 

 ■cents per pound. Later in the season I have the wild 

 tnongrels, which command a higher price. They are 

 a cross between the common African or Embden and 

 the wild goose and bring twenty-five cents per pound 

 in market at wholesale." 



FEEDING AND FATTENING YOUNG GEESE 



When the young geese are hatched do not give 

 them feed and water for the first thirty-six hours, or 



