=Size of flock.= On the ordinary farm, where only a few dozen geese are grown each year, a flock of one male and from two to four females gives a sufficient number of breeding birds. It is more difficult to get a start with geese than with fowls or ducks, because a young gander will often mate with only one goose, and an old gander separated from mates to which he has become attached may be very slow about establishing new family relations. An experienced goose grower does not expect to get very good results the first season that a flock of breeding birds are together. On the other hand, a flock once harmoniously mated does not have to be renewed every year or two. As long as the old birds are vigorous the entire product of young may be sold each season without reducing the producing capacity of the flock. The average gander is past his prime after he is six or seven years old, but geese are often good breeders until ten or twelve years old. Occasionally a goose lives to a great age. There are reliable accounts of geese breeding well when over twenty years old. Some stories of geese living to more than eighty years of age have been widely circulated, but little credence is to be given such tales; people who originate them and suppose that they are true do not know how difficult it would be to make sure of the identity of a goose through so long a period. =Houses and yards.= Geese, like ducks, prefer to live in the open air, and do not often voluntarily take shelter from any element but heat. It is customary to provide a small shelter which they may use if they wish. In most cases it is not necessary for a farmer to make a yard especially for geese. The permanent fences or walls between the divisions of the farm will usually keep geese in the pasture allotted to them. The best place for geese is a marshy meadow in which some parts of the surface are elevated enough to be quite dry at all seasons. These places afford more comfortable resting places when the birds tire of the wet land. They also furnish different kinds of grass from those growing on very wet land. On many farms there are tracts of land much more suitable for geese than for any other live stock. Cattle and hogs sometimes cut up such land very badly, destroying the vegetation on it and making it unsightly. Such a piece of land is sometimes a part of a pasture used for cattle. In that case it may be a good plan to fence the cattle from the soft ground with a wire or rail fence, which keeps them out of the part reserved for the geese, yet allows the geese the range of the whole pasture. A small number of geese in a large pasture will not hurt the pasture for cattle or horses. Too many geese in a pasture spoil the grass for themselves as well as for other stock. Even when cattle have access to all parts of a pasture in which there are geese, a small space should be inclosed for a feeding pen, where food for the geese will be out of the reach of other stock.