Every point of economy on this subject is matter of great moment, on the vast scale pursued by Mr Clarke, who pays seven hundred pounds a-year for the mere conveyance of his birds to the London market; a fact which gives a tolerable notion of the great extent of capital employed in this business, the extent of which is scarcely conceivable by my agricultural countrymen.
Little cost, however, is incurred by those who breed the geese, as the stock are left to provide for themselves, except in the laying season, and in feeding the goslings until they are old enough to eat grass or feed on the stubbles. I have no doubt, however, that the cramp would be less frequently experienced, if solid food were added to the grass, when the geese are turned out to graze, although Mr Clarke attributes the cramp, as well as gout and fever, to too close confinement alone. This opinion does not correspond with my far more limited observation, which leads me to believe that the cramp attacks goslings most frequently when they are at large, and left to shift for themselves on green food alone, and that of the poorest kind. I should think it good economy to give them, and the old stagers too, all spare garden vegetables, for loss of condition is prejudicial to them as well as to other animals. Mr Cobbett used to fatten his young geese, from June to October, on Swedish turnips, carrots, white cabbages, or lettuces, with some corn.
Swedish turnips no doubt will answer very well, but not so well as farinaceous potatoes, when immediate profit is the object. The experience of such an extensive dealer as Mr Clarke is worth volumes of theory and conjecture as to the mode of feeding, and he decides in favour of potatoes and oats.
The treatment for cramp and fever in Lincolnshire is bleeding—I know not if it be hazarded in gout—but as it is not successful in the cases of cramp in one instance out of twenty, it may be pronounced inefficacious.
I have had occasion lately to remark in this Journal on the general disinclination in England to the barbarous custom of plucking geese alive. In Lincolnshire, however, they do so with the breeding stock three times in the year, beginning at midsummer, and repeating the operation twice afterwards, at intervals of six weeks between the operations.
The practice is defended on the plea, that if the feathers be matured, the geese are better for it, while it is of course admitted that the birds must be injured more or less—according to the handling by the pluckers—if the feathers be not ripe. But as birds do not moult three times in the year, I do not understand how it should be correctly said that the feathers can be ripe on these three occasions. How does nature suggest the propriety of stripping the feathers so often? Where great numbers are kept, the loss by allowing the feathers to drop on the ground would be serious, and on this account alone can even one stripping be justified.
In proof of the general opinion that the goose is extremely long-lived, we have many recorded facts; among them the following:—“In 1824 there was a goose living in the possession of Mr Hewson of Glenham, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, which was then upwards of a century old. It had been throughout that term in the constant possession of Mr Hewson’s forefathers and himself, and on quitting his farm he would not suffer it to be sold with his other stock, but made a present of it to the in-coming tenant, that the venerable fowl might terminate its career on the spot where its useful life had been spent such a length of days.”
The taste which has long prevailed among gourmands for the liver of a goose, and has led to the enormous cruelties exercised in order to cause its enlargement by rendering the bird diseased in that organ through high and forced feeding in a warm temperature and close confinement, is well known; but I doubt if many are aware of the influence of charcoal in producing an unnatural state of the liver.
I had read of charcoal being put into a trough of water to sweeten it for geese when cooped up; but from a passage in a recent work by Liebig it would appear that the charcoal acts not as a sweetener of the water, but in another way on the constitution of the goose.
I am tempted to give the extract from its novelty:—“The production of flesh and fat may be artificially increased: all domestic animals, for example, contain much fat. We give food to animals which increases the activity of certain organs, and is itself capable of being transformed into fat. We add to the quantity of food, or we lessen the progress of respiration and perspiration by preventing motion. The conditions necessary to effect this purpose in birds are different from those in quadrupeds; and it is well known that charcoal powder produces such an excessive growth in the liver of a goose as at length causes the death of the animal.”