240 Transactions. — Chemistry. 



the race. They are free from all diseases to which sheep are 

 liable, hardy, and prolific, and experience has proven that they 

 readily adapt themselves to all portions of the United States. 

 The bucks breed readily with the common goat, the second 

 cross yielding a fleece of practical utility, while the fourth is 

 but little inferior to that of the pure breed. A flock of valu- 

 able wool-bearing goats can be raised in a few years by using 

 grade bucks. The animals are hardy, good rangers, and 

 long lived when compared with sheep, and do well on land 

 where other animals find it hard to live. Their value as 

 brushwood - cleaners can hardly be estimated ; but Mr. 

 Stanley, of Iowa, writes as follow^s : ' To a person who has 

 never seen the results of the application of Angoras to 

 brush land a ride through my blue-grass pastures is a re- 

 velation. Where three years ago the ground was densely 

 covered with undergrowth of hazel, crab-tree, oak, buck- 

 berry, and other brush, it is now growing the finest blue- 

 grass. At the present time I have over 600 acres which 

 have been reclaimed, and a conservative estimate would be 

 that the value of the land has thereby been enhanced at 

 least $10 per acre.' " 



The benefits arising from the systematic rearing of these 

 animals will not be solely for the enrichment and consolidation 

 of the land, for the hair and hides are of commercial value, 

 which will materially reduce the cost of the work. Mr. 

 Barnes quotes the number of goats in the United States at 

 half a million, of which one-half are Angora, and yet into that 

 country are imported annually goat-skins to the invoice value 

 of over £3,000,000. 



"We would strongly urge that this experiment should be 

 undertaken at an early date, and, as Mr. Barnes has shown 

 that the fourth generation of a cross between the Angora and 

 the ordinary goat will yield an animal almost equal to the 

 first progenitor, it would be well to take ordinary does with 

 pure-bred Angora rams, and, by herding them during the day 

 and folding on one of several small paddocks at night, the 

 minimum of cost and maximum of benefit w'ould ])e obtained. 

 Some paddocks should be prepared, the ground ploughed, 

 harrowed, and rolled, and good seed of various grasses and 

 clovers sown, or, if available, turfs of the Microleyia and 

 Danthonia. It would be well also in one or more of these 

 paddocks to sow lupins as suggested, to be turned under 

 before sowing the grasses. These paddocks would be utilised 

 for the weaning and care of the kids, and subsequently for 

 folding the older animals at night, they being herded in the 

 day. The gradual clearing, consolidation, and grassing of the 

 plains would thus start from a nucleus to be extended as it 

 was found to succeed. The cultivation of the cow-pea in the 



