32 BULLETIN 1385, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
to buy wings, breasts, backs, legs, heads, feet, giblets, and even blood 
separately. The butchers often have chickens hanging in the shops 
from which they will cut off any section Avanted by the customer. 
The prices for the various cuts vary. The most valuable part is 
the comb, which reaches prices equivalent to $1.50 a pound in 
United States weights and currency. Heads and feet are usually 
sold for use in soup stock, although in some parts of eastern Europe 
the brains and the eyes are also considered a delicacy. Refrigera- 
tion of any kind is practically unknown in any of the European 
retail markets. This means that the meats and poultry must be sold 
shortly after killing or withdrawal from storage. 
Furthermore, scarcely any poultry is stored in a frozen condition 
in continental Europe. In the cities having cold-storage warehouses 
some of the retail butchers lease small spaces, wherein they carry 
small stocks of meats and some poultry. The poultry in these stor- 
ages is usually merely wrapped in paper and the birds piled one on 
top of the other. It is seldom placed in boxes or baskets. The 
poultry thus stored often is some that has been withdrawn from a 
sluggish market and as a consequence is of such quality when re- 
exposed for sale as to detract from the reputation of cold-storage 
goods. 
The meat retailers, like all dealers in perishable-food products in 
Europe, are especially favored by the climatic conditions. Except 
in extreme southern portions, the nights are generally cool and the 
days do not become excessively hot. Another striking feature is 
the absence of flies both in the markets and in the homes. Flies are 
so few that screened windows and doors are practically unknown. 
MARKETING OF GEESE 
The goose industry in Europe is as separate from the rest of the 
poultry industry as are swine from cattle. The raising of geese is 
generally confined to those sections of continental Europe where the 
strip system of agriculture prevails and the people live in villages. 
The geese are raised for feathers, meat, fat, and pate de fois gras, 
which is made from the enlarged and engorged livers of geese re- 
sulting from cramming the geese in confinement until they are so 
fat that they can hardly walk. 
Europeans use large quantities of goose feathers in mattresses, 
pillows, and comfortables for the bed. It is hard for an American 
to realize the enormous quantities thus used. Feather mattresses 
are often 18 inches thick, and pillows are about three times the size 
of the ordinary American feather pillow. It is claimed that in 
Bulgaria the number of feather beds a peasant has indicates his 
wealth. Feathers also form an important part of the daughter's 
dowry. 
Geese are fed for market in three distinct ways — by pen fattening, 
by cramming, or by a combination of both. When they are fattened 
in the pens they are sold mainly for meat purposes, the object being 
to have a well-fattened, tender-meated bird. The superfat geese, 
resulting from cramming, are used for the fat and for the manufac- 
ture of pate de fois gras. 
