Poultry-Keeping for Pleasure and Profit (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. The Goose--Pennant--The China Goose--Pea-fowl--The SwanGuinea-fowl. I HAVE never kept any great number of geese, considering their presence objectionable where there are a number of grazing animals like milch cows, as they injure the grass a good deal, and make it foul with their excrement; but they give very little trouble to their owners, and ought to be much more frequently kept than they are, by those who live in the neighbourhood of commons, and other waste or semi-waste lands. They appear to have been kept in much greater numbers during the past century by single individuals, than they are at present, Pennant stating that single owners were the possessors of a thousand geese in districts such as the fens in Lincolnshire, or the Surrey commons. Probably the greater number of cattle that are now kept, and the grazing land being considered to be partly spoiled for feeding purposes, where geese go upon it, as well as the alteration in the opportunities presented to the class of persons who would interest themselves in this kind of business, on account of the J3ARBAR0US CUSTOM OF PLUCKING GEESE. 153 land being more completely taken up, has been one principal cause for their numbers being lessened. "During the breeding season," says the author I have quoted, "these birds are lodged in the same houses with the inhabitants, and even in their very bed-chambers. In every apartment are three rows of coarse wicker pens, placed one above another; each i bird has its separate lodge divided from the others, of which it keeps possession during the time of sitting, j A person called a 'gozzard, ' i.e. gooseherd, attends the flock, and twice a day drives the whole to water; then brings them back to their habitations, helping those that live in the upper ...