How should I test that autoloads work properly with package.el?

I've added some autoloads to PACKAGE with the ;;;###autoload cookie and I've run M-x update-directory-autoloads which generated PACKAGE-autoloads.el. I have the following form in my init:

(package-initialize) ;; ... ;; some stuff that needs package.el to be initialized ;; ... (use-package PACKAGE :init nil :load-path "~/path/to/PACKAGE" :defer t) 

What can I use as the :init form to load the autoloads as package.el would? I'm assuming package.el loads the autoloads for every directory in load-path upon activation and before each package is require'd, but perhaps this is in an incorrect assumption. This excerpt from package.el is what leads me to believe this is so:

;; At activation time we will set up the load-path and the info path, ;; and we will load the package's autoloads. If a package's ;; dependencies are not available, we will not activate that package. ;; Conceptually a package has multiple state transitions: ;; ;; * Download. Fetching the package from ELPA. ;; * Install. Untar the package, or write the .el file, into ;; ~/.emacs.d/elpa/ directory. ;; * Autoload generation. ;; * Byte compile. Currently this phase is done during install, ;; but we may change this. ;; * Activate. Evaluate the autoloads for the package to make it ;; available to the user. ;; * Load. Actually load the package and run some code from it.