Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1882 — Shooting by the Wholesale. [ARTICLE]

Shooting by the Wholesale.

Various methods have been devised of exterminating wild geese without avail, until geese-herdinghas become a profession as distinct as herding or trapping. In the early winter the geese appear in the grain counties in myriads, travelling about in vast flocks. Their hunger is insatiable and the new wheat is rapidly destroyed. Dr. H. G. Glenn, whose ranch in Colusa county covers most of the arable land in that county, numbering some 75,000 acres, or neatly twelve square miles, expends about SIO,OOO a year in herding his He recently purchased in this city for the present season between $2,000 and $3, worth of catridges, about 250,006 in number, of 44-calibre. He has constantly in his employ,while his wheat is growing, about forty men, all of them mounted and nearly all armed with Henry rifles and field glasses, who patrol his property during the day and on all moonlights nights. These men are regularly organized into a patrol guard. They discover with their glasses the flocks of geese which at a- distance of from 300 to 400 yards look like a white blanket spread over the green wheat, and they thereupon plant a bullet right in the middle of the flock. This unexpected visitation sets the flock on the wing, and the geese herder follows them up, keeps planting bullets among them until they rise to a great height, and, disgusted, leave the vicinity. Few geese are killed, the object being to keep them on the wing and consequently oft the wheat fields. Those that are killed and carried off and shorn of their feathers, but the revenue from them amounts to little. On Dr. Glenn’s ranch about 8,000 catridges are used in a day, which represents about 20,000 daily put to flight. Oftentimes a thick fog blows in,and this appears to be the favorite lime for the geese, and they devour the wheat with great energy. The herders then, fearful of shooting each other, are almost baffled, but when the fog rises the flocks are put to flight and for hours thereafter the air is filled with feathers and geese, and Glenn’s ranch resounds with the clatter of rifles and the frightened cries of the persecuted fowls. To pay his men, buy ammunition and maintain horses costs Dr. Glenn some SIO,OOO per annum, but it saves his wheat, which yields SIOO,OOO. as with out the geese herders half would be destroyed. The herders become very, expert in their business and are generally good shots and capital horsemen.