ood stall of bees, that is to say, the produce of one, is always
worth about _two bushels of good wheat_. The _cost_ is nothing to the
labourer. He must be a stupid countryman indeed who cannot make a
bee-hive; and a lazy one indeed if he _will_ not, if he can. In short,
there is nothing but _care_ demanded; and there are very few situations in
the country, especially in the south of England, where a labouring man may
not have half a dozen stalls of bees to take every year. The main things
are to keep away insects, mice, and birds, and especially a little bird
called the bee-bird; and to keep all clean and fresh as to the hives and
coverings. Never put a swarm into an _old hive_. If wasps, or hornets,
annoy you, watch them home in the day time; and in the night kill them by
fire, or by boiling water. Fowls should not go where bees are, for they
eat them.

166. Suppose a man get three stalls of bees in a year. Six bushels of
wheat give him bread for an _eighth part of the year_. Scarcely any thing
is a greater misfortune than _shiftlessness_. It is an evil little short
of the loss of eyes or of limbs.

GEESE.

167. They can be kept to advantage only where there are _green commons_,
and there they are easily kept; live to a very great age; and are amongst
the hardiest animals in the world. If _well kept_, a goose will lay a
hundred eggs in a year. The French put their eggs under large hens of
common fowls, to each of which they give four or five eggs; or under
turkies, to which they give nine or ten goose-eggs. If the goose herself
sit, she must be well and _regularly fed_, at, or near to, her nest. When
the young ones are hatched, they should be kept in a warm place for about
four days, and fed on barley-meal, mixed, if possible, with milk; and then
they will begin to _graze_. Water for them, or for the old ones to _swim_
in, is by no means _necessary_, nor, perhaps, ever even _useful_. Or, how
is it, that you see such fine flocks of fine geese all over Long Island
(in America) where there is scarcely such a thing as a pond or a run of
water?

168. Geese are raised by _grazing_; but to _fat_ them something more is
required. Corn of some sort, or boiled Swedish turnips. Some corn and some
raw Swedish turnips, or carrots, or white cabbages, or lettuces, make the
best fatting. The modes that are resorted to by the French for fatting
geese, _nailing_ them down by their webs, and other acts of cruelty, are,
I hope, such