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too small an affair to invite considrativn, 
Too small! Three millions of money 
carried off by the Ficnch! 
Is that a trade to be treated with in- 
difference ? 
Lately, we have l.cen hearing a great 
deal about women’s work, and of how 
young ladies should employ themselves, 
Here is something, at «li events, for 
farmers’ wives and daughters to set their 
faces to without the slighte-t derogation 
of rank, dignity, or char:cter, Let them 
take up in real earnest the culture of 
fowls, if only for the sake of the eggs, 
which, on a grezt aud remunerative scale, 
may be produced. Those women who 
already appropriate a portion of their 
leisure to this occupation deserve all 
honor, far more than those who spend 
hours over fancy work or weeks at the 
piano with the sole object cf gaining a 
doubifully valuable musical di,loma, 
Such refinements are undoubtedly very 
excellent things in their way, but, carried 
to excess, they we harmful, and tend to 
draw people away from many light and 
pleasant rmal pleasures which were the 
pride of the country-women in times not 
very long ago. 
The Domestic Goose. 
Daily use demonstrates what great 
services the snserine race renders to 
us; what great aid numerous conyeni- 
ences it affords. For even while living 
it abundantly supplics us with eggs and 
young birds for food, with feathers to 
soften our couch, and with quills as mute 
interpreters to express the thoughts that 
arise in our minds. And more,it is a 
most secure guardian of our persons and 
our dwellings, far more to be depended 
upon than the dog. : 
We apply the term ‘‘ domestic” to the 
goose, using only ‘ tame” for the duck 
to signify a much closer intimacy with 
and submission to the control of man, 
and, as a further contrast, the domestica- 
tion of the common goose Jike that of 
the fowl, hides itself, as we pursue it in 
its remotest depths, and obscurest mists 
of ancient history. By the Hebrews, as 
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THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
by tmany mvuerh naturalists, ic would be 
clasged generically with the swan, and so 
be included in their list of unclean birds. 
Among the Greeks and Romans, it seems 
to have been the only domesticated water 
fowl, and appears to have held exactly 
the same place in their esteem, that it 
still retains, after the lapse of two or three 
thousand years, in our farm-yards, and on 
ourcommons. Indeed, a modern writer 
may escape a great part of the tronble of 
composing the natural history of the do- 
mestic goose, if he will only collect the 
materials that are scattered amongst 
ancient authors, A very early notice of 
them occurs in Homer. Penelope, relat- 
ing her dream, says— 
A team of twenty geese (a snow white train) 
Fed near the limpid lake with golden grain, 
Amuse my pensive hours. 
Pope’s version is both flat and inac- 
curate The ‘snow-white train, (I 
would bet Mr Pope a dish of tey—as he 
rhymes it—that Penlope’s geese were not 
snow-white, whatever the ganders might 
be), the ‘ limpid lake,’ the ‘ pensile hours’ 
are not Homeric, but Popeian. The 
literal translation of the Greek is ‘ I have 
twenty geese at home, that eat wheat out 
of water, and Iam delighted to look at 
them.” We omit the rest of her vision, 
as little to our purpose, but her mode of 
fattening them, and her complacent 
chuckle at seeing them thrive, could not 
be surpased by the most enthusiastic 
members of the Royal Agricultural Society, 
If she entertained her numerous suitors 
with fat roast goose, it may partly explain 
why they stuck to her in so troublesome 
and pertinacious a manner, 
lt is very natural to inquire whence so 
remarkable and valuable a bird was 
originally obtained, brt the conclusion 
generally arrived at appéars to be 
inconsistant, not merely with truth, but 
even with probability namely, that it 
results from the crossing and intermixture 
of several wild species. None of these 
ancient accounts indicate any such fact, 
but, on the contary, declare that the do- 
mestic goose was in the earliest ages 
(dating with respect to man) exactly 
what it isnow. The very same argument 
that was used to show tnat the domestic 
_ goose is a combination of the grey-legged, 
white fronted, and bean geese, would 
equally prove that the Anglo-Saxon race 
of men is derived from a mixture of the 
Red Indian, the Yellow Chinese, and the 
tawny Moor.’ We cannot thorefore help 
suspecting very strongly that we shall err 
in referring the parentage of the common 
goose to any existing species. Mr Yarrell 
hesitatingly says that ‘the grey legged 
goose is considered to be the origin from 
which our valuable domesticated race is 
derived,’ and instances the union of a 
pinioned wild grey-legged gander with a 
domestic goose that had been assigned as 
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his mate. But those who have kept many 
different species of geese together well 
know what unaccountable attachments 
they are frequently forming, and they vre 
quite as likely to pair and rear young 
with individuals of a race apparently the 
most alien to themselves as with their 
own stock. Indeed, amongst geese it will 
be difficult to define the limits of species 
at least if the fertility of hybrids be the 
test. 
But the supposition that all our domes- 
ticated creatures must necessarily have 
an existing wild original, is mere assump- 
tion: and it has misled, and it is likely to 
mislead, investigators as far from the 
truth as did the old notion about fossil 
organic remains, that they were Litho- 
schemata, as Aldrovandus has it, sketches 
in stone, abortive efforts of nature. imper- 
fect embryos instead of fragmentary ruins 
of a former state of things Some natur- 
alists seem already to have had misgivings 
that such a theory respecting domestic 
animals is not tenable, according to the 
Rev. L. Jenyns. 
The domestic goose is usually considered 
as haying been derived from the grey 
legged goose, but such a circumstance is 
rendered highly improbable from the well 
known fact that the common gander, after 
attaining a certain age, is invariably white 
Montague also observes that « specimen 
of Anser ferus, which was shotin the wing 
by a farmer in Wiltshire, and kept alive 
many years, would never associate with 
the tame geese. 1n fact the origin of this. 
last is unknown.” 
The origin of the domestic goose is 
indeed unknown, if we look to man or his 
influence, to have originated so valuable 
and peculiar a species but not unknown 
if we believe it to have heen created by 
the same Almighty Power who animated 
the Mammoth, the Plesiosaurus, the and 
the Dodo. For let us grant that the grey 
legged goose is the most probable existing 
parent of the domestic sort, Now that is 
becoming a rare bird, and the more scarce 
a creature in a wild state, the scarcer it is 
likely still to become. 
The Toulouse goose which has been so 
much extolled and sold at such high prices 
is only the common domestic, enlarged 
by early hatching, very liberal feeding 
during youth, fine climate and perhaps by 
age 
Ducks and geese aro largely foragers, 
and use a large amount of grass in their 
feed. ‘They are therefore doubly profit- 
able, feeding both in the water and on 
the land. 
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Six miles from City. 16 Acres. Several 
Acres Choice Assorted Fruits, House 
Oil Engine. Splendid 
Price £1,359, 
and Outhouses. 
Flat on River’s Bank. 
Apply S.P., this office. 
