The Winslow mail., 1898-04-30
4 KENTUCKY GOOSE FARM.
eighteen Thousnnd Fat Fowl TO BE
Shipped to Eew York This Year.

Eighteen Thousnnd Fat Fowl TO BE
shipped to Eey York This Year.
The Hebrews in New York city will
get $4,000 fat geese this year from Ken
tucky. The geese are being shipped by
one man. Sol Renaker, of Cynthiana.
On the Licking river, just above Gym
thiana, he has erected large wooden
building about so feet wide and $50 feet
lcng. It is two stories high. The floors
slant gradually to the center SO that
they can be flooded, and thus kept clean.
There are troughs placed at convenient
points to hold the food for the geese. At
present there are 5000 geese in this
building, in different stages of the fat
tening process. They are gathered
from all parts of the state, and when
they arrive their average weight is from
four to eight pounas. They are first
placed in the large yard in which the
building is situated, and there they find
abundance of water, so that they can
clean themselves. After few days they
are placed in the house in the fattening
pens. 1t requires four or five weeks of
careful feeding to fatten the geese. The
establishment has a steam corn mill
and corn shelter. The corn is purchased
from the farmers in the neigh borhood
and is shelled and ground into meal.
The cobs run down chute to the
furnace and make enough fuel to run
the machinery. The meal is mixed into
a dough and in that form fed to the
geese.
"a goose is the cleanest fowl alive"
T. = Al
poultry business since 1871, have han
died all kinds of domestic fowl, and have
STUDIED their habits closely, and have
peyer seen anything which equals the
goose in cleanliness. They are een-
stantly at work keeping their feathers
clean, and II they have plenty of water
they are never seen except when fit for
dress parade. They are equally careful
regarding their food. On one occasion
we bought a lot of corn which had
musted, and the geese would not eat
the dough made from it, nor will they
eat dough after it has soured. On this
account we have to be very careful to
mix up no more dough than the geese
will eat in a day. Another peculiar
thing about geese is that they eat
great deal more some days than they do
on others. For instance, it frequently
requires 30 or 40 buckets of dough day
to giyep pen of geese. Then for few
days they will probably not eat more
than dozen uekets. When they have
plenty of water and wholesome food
geese fatten rapidly and have no dis
case, but unless they have an oppor-
tunity to keep clean and have pure food
they will die rapidly.
"They are sold by the brace, and
average, when fat, from IA to 3s pounds
brace. We sell our geese in only one
market-New York city. They are
shipped in poultry cars, and are fur
nished with an abundance OF water and
eornmeal dough while they are on the
way. The reason they are shipped alive
is that Hebrews may not purchase them
after they are killed. Last year we
shipped about $4,000 geese to New York
city, and this year we will handle 10000
The capacity of our house is between
5000 and 5000. IT requires three men
te attend the corn shelter and the mill
and to feed the geese. We have water
works connections, and keep the house
NICE and clean by flooding The floors,
end we keep the geese supplied with all
the fresh water they need.
III don't think there is another es-
tablishment of the kind in Kentucky.
There may be few in the west. be-
lieve mora geese are raised in Kentucky
than in any other two western states.
You know our farmers are mostly de-
scendants of Virginians and Maryland
ers who settled here hundred wears
ago and who raised their own geese to
provide feather beds for their families.
This habit has been continued TO the
present generation, and there are few
farms, especially in the older sections
of the state, on which there are no
geese. Although the cotton mattress
has largely taken the place of the feath-
er bed, the wives Of Ksptucky farmers
continue to raise geese, as their mothers
and grandmothers did before them.
Thus it is that we are enabled to gather
together so many geese at this point.
"-Phe business is peculiar one, but
it has its destinations. Geese have a
great deal more sense than they have
credit for, and they learn to know their
attendants and seem to appreciate the
care and attention they receive. We
have several different breeds in Ken
e lucky, of which the Hong-Kong is the
most popular. The e!d-fashioned blue
goose is quite common, and many of
these have been crossed with wild geese,
the latter straying away from their
flocks during their PERIODS of migra-
tion from the south to the north in the
early spring.1N. 7. Sun.
A Jnil-Made Guitar,
Simon Cannon, a negro in Jail at Rus
-o1ly;Ilo Ev olx hoop nf n