44 w. cook's turkey, goose, and pheasant book. 



I have penned geese on the grass so that their excrements 

 have covered the ground and the following year, when the 

 grass has grown again, I found my cattle ate it as close as 

 any other part, if anything closer. 



There is another old adage which says geese will not pay 

 to eat unless they are plucked three or four times a year for 

 their feathers. This practice is believed in and carried on 

 very largely in Lincolnshire because goose feathers are 

 valuable. 



Some people have an idea that it is very cruel to deprive 

 them of their feathers. I used to think so myself, but it 

 was before I saw it done. It is not a practice I would 

 recommend to anyone. Though there is a certain amount 

 of down left upon the birds' bodies to keep them warm it 

 must hurt them a little when the feathers are pulled from 

 their bodies, but the farmers tell me they do not think 

 it does. I cannot have any hair pulled from my head 

 without I feel it. I am quite aware feathers are different 

 to hair and come out much easier, still it leaves a larger 

 hole in the skin. The quill of a feather goes right through 

 the skin. No matter how fine the quill is it must be six 

 times the size of an ordinary hair, so that though I do not 

 recommend this system the Lincolnshire farmers tell me I 

 must not condemn it. 



I am pleased to say geese are kept much more than they 

 were years ago, in some parts of the country there are ten 

 times the number of geese reared for the markets in com- 

 parison to what there use.d to be a few years ago. 



Geese are very useful birds, they are almost as good as a 

 yard dog and in some cases better. 



