Geese are very valuable, on account of the feathers they afford: for this purpose, they are unmercifully plucked in the county of Lincoln (where they are reared in the largest numbers) five times in the year: the first operation is performed at Lady-day, for feathers and quills, and is repeated four times between that period and Michaelmas, for feathers only. The old birds submit quietly, but the young ones frequently prove unruly and noisy. The latter may be plucked once, when about thirteen or fourteen weeks old, for feathers; but no quills must be taken from them; nor should this operation be performed at too early a season, because the goslings are liable to perish in cold summers.—Although the plucking of geese has by many been considered as a barbarous custom, yet experience has evince, that these birds, when properly stripped of their feathers, thrive better, and are more healthy, than if they were permitted to drop them by moulting.
As geese form a principal delicacy at our tables, the most expeditious mode of fattening them is an object of some importance. Hence it has been recommended to keep them cooped up in a dark and narrow place, where they are to be fed with ground malt mixed with milk, or if milk be scarce, with barley-meal, mashed up with water. Another, and less expensive way, of which we can speak from experience, consists in giving them boiled oats with either ducks'-meat, or chopped carrots, alternately, as they are exceedingly fond of variety: thus, they will become very fat in a few weeks, while their meat acquires a fine flavour.
In order to fatten Michaelmas, or stubble-geese, it his been directed, first to turn them on the wheat-eddishes, or those pastures that grow after wheat has been harvested. Next, they are to be pent up, and fed with ground malt mixed with water, for which, boiled oats, malt, or wheat, may occasionally be substituted.
This method of fattening, however, by no means deserves to be countenanced; for, as the flesh of geese is naturally a precarious food, confinement, without exercise, renders it still more unwholesome. Their fat, indeed, is almost indigestible; and their flesh has a very bad effect on wounds and ulcers. It is also pernicious to persons, whose habits of body predispose them to inflammatory diseases, and frequent eruptions of the skin; for the prevention of which, they ought prudently to abstain from this delicious morsel.
GOOSEBERRY, the Rough, or Fea-berry, Ribes grossularia, L. an indigenous shrub growing in woods and hedges, especially about Darlington, Durham; also, on old buildings and church-towers, whither it has probably been transplanted by birds. This useful bush flowers in April, and bears fruit in June or July, which, however, does not acquire its natural vinous flavour in this climate, till August or September.
Although gooseberries are generally eaten, or employed for culinary purposes, before they arrive at perfect maturity, yet being one of the most saccharine productions we possess, they might with more advantage be converted into wine. As each pound of the juice expressed from ripe berries requires only one ounce of soft sugar
