Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-11-20
WHEN WILD GEESE
WERE 4 PEST
BATTLES BETWEEN THE BIRDS
AND EARLY SETTLERS OF
CALIFORNIA.
SHOT ONLY TO SCARE THEM.
Regiments of Men Employed to Drive
Ravenous Birds from Grain
Fields.
SHOT ONLY TO SCARE THEM.
GoosEMAN'S OCCUPATION GONE

when you see the sandhill crane
corkscreWing along the Sierra Madre.'
said an old duck hunter, you can put
1t IN your pipe that the duck season will
be OH soon" writes a Los Angeles cor
respondent of the New York Sun.
But duck shooting amt what it was -
he continued when | first came to
California in the early sos | married
wife whose father had a $4,000 acre
grain ranch. and | started in as a goose
man; Guess you never heard of thar
word. never did before.
was the bookkeeper of the ranch,
and the item that paralyzed me on those
books was cartridges for the season
of 1858, 10000; Mexicans and Indians
to shoot geese, 25O.' [ thought it was a
joke, but [ mighty soon found my mis-
take as after the first rain in the Sacra-
mento valley and the green began to
spring up the old man had to hire an
army of at least 300, and | enlisted
Everybody turned out: not shooting
geese, Lord bless you! No, but just
soaring them off the green fields. Why,
L rode out one morning just before the
crop came on, and | thought it had been
showing; as far as | could see the
ground was covered with white geese.
A ranch wouldn't have had a show five
minutes with them, and you would be-
lieye me if | told you the amount Of
ammunition used on that ranch in ten
years; it was as much as is used in
some wars.
Just Scared Them Away.
AS soon as the planting began we went
on duty, just like soldiers Thirty went
out for four hours. Then they were re-
lieved, and so on all night. We didn't
shoot goose; jest fired over them with
all kinds of guns. anything that would
make noise, trying to drum them off.
But when they rose in one place they
settled in another. Sometimes we started
III to kill them. and once we used an old
hOWitzer to scare them; but they got so
used to it that it was a fight to save the
grain from them.
They watched the men plant and if
left alone they'd have the seeds out be-
fore they started to sprOut, and only the
night and all day for weeks saved some
of the big wheat fields in those days.
Il remember one night 1t was rain
ing and | was sitting on my horse with
three new goosemen who had just ar
rived. Suddenly we began to hear the
was foggy you couldn't see a thing.
Down from the air came the most
awful sounds coupled with a rush of
wings. A Mexican in the outfit fell off
his horse and got on his knees; he was
jest scared stiff-thought the end of all
things had come. Then when the roar
got so loud that our horses began to
stampede, down out of the fog dropped
about a million geese. 1t was like a
snowstorm, with twenty pound fakes.
''All the horses ran or bucked the new
men off and then the geese, of course
saw us and-well, it was Hades for a
few moments. One man was hit by a
goose and knocked completely out of his
saddle Two had geese alight on their
horses, and they were so thick that when
a big honker landed on the back Of my
horse she let fly behind and struck a
goose that was just alighting and killed
it.
''Why, pardner, you wouldn't believe
half of it if | should sit down and talk
goose with you. I've stood on little
rise of land and seen the country tor
miles covered with geese so that yoE
would have taken your oath that the
country was covered with snow.
1T was discouraging, heartbreak1ng Tor
the original grain men up in Glenn and
other counties, and the big men offered
all kinds of money to any one who
would invent some scheme to scare geese
We couldn't kill them. There wasn't
people enough i'll the state TO eat the
geese 200 men could kill in a night it we
started in SO the only thing, to do was
,;,5o yalIiDU and shooting.