Show SWARMS OP OF WILD GEESE one of the geors which beset the wheat grower I 1 in california 1 I had an experienc exper experience iene L with wild geese in california and it is so big that few except those who are familiar with them can readily believe it said state senator dare to a san Franci francisco sp examiner reporter 1 I own a ranch of fourteen thousand acres at knights landing on the sacramento the yolo ranch I 1 raise a great deal of wheat and every year as soon as the wheat comes up the country is overrun with geese I 1 have seen droves of them two or three miles long and so thick that when you shoot into them with a rifle you are bound to hit some of them thein they are so 0 plentiful that I 1 am obliged i to hire herders gerders to keep them off they settle in great bands A band will settle down on five acres say and you wont hear a quack nor a squawk but the geese are there and very industrious and before you know it they have pulled up and eaten every bit of the grain they have a skillful way of of grasping the tender shoots in their mouths and pulling and relating relaxing and pulling again till they get the swollen g prams rains with the blades and then eat the whole A storm is almost sure to bring them in larg large e numbers but they often come in entirely fair weather I 1 keip keep many herders gerders to drive them away it it xv were e re not for this I 1 have any abe wheat t the men are ar armed loud sounding sounding winchesters Win chesters and nil n they keep shooting 01 among them all the time at night the geese dont bother but early in the morning and all through the day they literally swarm the herd ers go out very early in the morning and stay all day it is n continual battle the geese roust be kept going all the time or the wheat is gone when the men are plowing they get very caos close to the geese T take alte fourteen or sixteen teams each w with ith 1 a big plow that turns four furr furrows aws they come oma along in a tring the first one is is a good od way off the next is a little closer closer and so on till the last one Is is fifty feet or more nearer than the first one was the gecse dont notice this and a man can knock them over a as s lie he goes byi saw boneman one man take a monkey wrench and bowl away and kill one in fact if anyone wants geese ho he may easily kill them by thousands and I 1 was almost going to say millions up there I 1 have gilgi them myself many a time the annual visitation of the geese at knights Lan landing dingis is not a joke it is the st ernest kind of reality and means a heavy loss if warfare is not kept up against them |