152 MAIXi: AGRICUI.TURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I903. 



enables the farmer in a wooded locality to use them to help in 

 subjugating the forest; their flesh is exceedingly delicate and 

 rutritious ; the milk, though not so abundant as with the milch 

 breed of goats, is richer than cow's milk; their tanned skins, 

 though inferior in quality to the skins of the common goat, are 

 used for leather ; their pelts make the neatest of rugs and robes ; 

 they are excellent pets for children ; a few of them in a flock of 

 siicep are a protection from wolves and dogs ; their manure is 

 noticeably helpful to the grass which follows them after they 

 have cleaned away the underbrush." 



The claims made for their browsing habits as a help to clear- 

 ing wooded areas and particularly "sprout land" especially 

 attracted the attention of this Station. Mr. Libbey of Burnham 

 during 1900 and 1901 imported into Maine from Texas and New 

 Mexico several hundred Angoras, from which number the Sta- 

 tion purchased in 1901 six does and a ''registered" buck, not 

 akin to the does. 



The buck bought by us has the Angora type and is probably 

 at least fifteen-sixteenths Angora. The does are grade and 

 apparently dififer in their purity of breeding. 



During the winter months the goats have been kept in a room 

 in the sheep house with the run of a yard. In the summer they 

 have been kept in woodland and in pasture growing up to bushes 

 and in young woodland. In the barn the only feed has been hay, 

 and no supplementary food was given when in pasture. This 

 care was not sufficient in this case to successfully build up the 

 flock. In the spring of 1902 five of the does dropped one kid 

 each and in the spring of 1903 only two of the does produced off- 

 spring. The flock at the end of two years would thus have only 

 doubled or increased from 7 to 14. The kids were vigorous 

 when dropped and presented no difficulties in rearing, but at the 

 end of 18 months they were not as large as their dams. One of 

 the wethers was killed to test its flesh and one of the does died 

 before it was a year old, so that we had the same number or 12 

 in the pasture during the seasons of 1902 and 1903. When fed 

 on hay, the goats ate on an average 4 pounds per day. In the 

 summer of 1901 the goats were put in a pasture with some 

 bushes and weeds. The goats ate these in preference to the 

 grasses. 



The pasture was fenced with ordinary woven wire fencing, 

 and the goats persisted in putting their heads through the meshes 



