MAKKETIXG TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 145 



from twenty-eight to thirty cents. Common hen 

 feathers sell at four to five cents per pound. 



Said Mr. Cornell, owner of this establishment: 

 "This year I have fattened about 10,000 geese and about 

 4000 ducks, not as many as usual, as it has been a poor 

 season. I feed them on corn meal and beef scraps, 

 fattening them during September, October and Novem- 

 ber. I feed 100 bushels meal per day, and two tons of 

 scraps per week. We do not coop them up in houses 

 to fatten them; they are out in yards about thirty to 

 forty feet square. I employ about eight pickers and 

 three or four men to take care of the geese. Most of 

 my poultry goes to New York market. We stick them 

 in the roof of the mouth to bleed them, and hit them on 

 the head with a small stick. Do not pick the neck or 

 wings, only the body. I pay ten cents for picking 

 geese and six cents for ducks." 



According to another specialist, geese may be 

 finished for market by feeding liberally about four 

 weeks in coops. An old shed is a good enough fattening 

 place. Good foods are corn meal and shorts, boiled 

 oats, brewers' grain and some fresh green stuff or 

 boiled potatoes. Gravel or grit is positively needed, 

 also plenty of water. 



Special Fattening of Geese — The most extreme 

 method of artificial fattening is employed with geese 

 whose livers are to be used for the delicacy known as 

 "foie gras" (fat liver). In Farmers' Bulletin No. 182 

 of the United States department of agriculture, Helen 

 W. Atwater says this art of fattening geese until fatty 

 infiltration of the liver has set in and that organ weighs 

 from two and one-half to three pounds, is practiced on 

 a large scale about Strasburg, Germany, and to a less 

 extent about Toulouse and elsewhere. The birds are 

 usually confined in small, dark cages, where they can 

 move only a few inches, and are fed two or three times 



