304 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



CASHMERE GOATS. 



Stockton, December 15th, 1866. 

 I. N. HoAG, Esq., 



Secretary State Board of Agriculture : 



Dear Sir : — At your request I give you my experience with Cashmere 

 goats. My efforts have been attended with some little difficulty, but 

 Dot on account of any disease; for if tliey are subject to any disease, it 

 has not made its appearance in our flocks. In the spring of eighteen 

 hundred and sixty-one, I purchased tAvo thorouglibred Cashmere bucks 

 of Eichard Peters, of Atlanta, Georgia. I shipped them to Leavenworth 

 in a box. Tliere I sheared them, and tied them behind a wagon, and led 

 them to Stockton. I allowed them to graze at ever}^ stopping place, and 

 did not haul them to exceed fifteen days on the entire trip. Eight days 

 after I arrived at Stockton I exhibited them at your State Fair, showing 

 a fleece of ten and a half inches in length — the growth of a few days 

 over five months while crossing the plains. 



In the fall of eighteen hundred and sixty-one 1 purchased a flock of 

 common ewe goats for breeding, but found that most of them were preg- 

 nant from common bucks, which caused an almost entire failure for the 

 first 3'ear. Tl)c next summer one of our bucks was bitten by a snake, 

 and died of the effects. The other is still alive and doin^ well. He 

 weighs one hundred and eighty pounds. In eighteen hundred ami sixty- 

 three, we raised from this one about one hundred and sixt}' kids — half 

 breeds. In eighteen hundred and sixty-four we raised something over 

 one hundred — about fifty of them being three-quarter breeds — the lambs 

 from the graded yearlina-s. The extreme drou<>-ht of that season com- 

 ]3ellcd us to send our flock to the mountains for subsistence; and we lost 

 many of our one half and three quarter grade ewes; so that we Avere 

 set back at least a year in breeding. 



This year we only had eighty-one half breed ewes with the old liuck, 

 and we raised eighty kids of three fourths Cashmere blood. About foi-ty 

 of them are ewes, from which we will, by ])lacing them to the old bu(;k, 

 be able to raise kids of seven eighths Cashmere blood And Ave have 

 about ninet}' half-breed ewes, from Avhich Ave Avill raise three quarter 

 breeds. 



We liaA'^e no difficulty in saving the kids in any kind of Aveathcr, they 

 being ver}^ tough and hardy. Tiic half-breeds have a fleece that covers 



