350 
GEESE 
their flocks, in the shape of quills and feathers, exclusive of 
the body considered as an article of food, as a source of 
profit to them almost as great as the shepherd derives from 
his flocks and herds. These Geese are reared and protected 
with a care and attention of which those who have not 
witnessed it can form no conception. 
Goose. 
It may, indeed, he doubted whether, under certain cir- 
cumstances, Geese, in a profitable point of view, may not he 
considered as nearly equal to sheep. The latter, it is true, 
furnish a lucrative trade to weavers and manufacturers, as 
well as the farmer who feeds them ; but the Goose affords 
no small item in the ledger of the upholsterer and the 
stationer, as well as the poulterer, in addition to thousands 
of acres of marsh land, which, hut for this useful bird, would 
remain for ever worthless, or at best, supply a scanty and 
precarious pittance. A slight sketch of the mode of 
managing a flock in Lincolnshire may not be uninteresting. 
A single person will keep a thousand old Geese, each of 
