Hayes.l ■ 416 [March 18, 



To judge of the value and feasibility of such attsmpls we must bear 

 distinctly in view the precise economical result to be sought for. It is 

 obviously, not primarily to obtain a breed of goats which shall be fit 

 for the butcher. Neither is it to secure a breed which will furnish a 

 merely tolerable fleece which would be simply a substitute for the wool 

 of the sheep. The object is to appropriate a race of animals which 

 shall produce a textile material adapted for certain defined purposes 

 in the arts as distinct as silk, noble Saxony wool, or sea island cotton; 

 a material which is a substitute for nothing else known, and has origi- 

 nated its own fabrics. The introduction of a race which falls to give 

 this peculiar fibre, would be no real acquisition, however amusing to 

 the breeder, and interesting to the physiologist the experiments in 

 crossing might be.* 



Laying aside the statements given in the agricultural reports, as of 

 little value as testimony, because there is no matter in which even 

 skillful flock breeders are so liable to be deceived, as in the charac*,er 

 and adaptation of their fleeces, and because there is no evidence that 

 the products of the crosses referred to have ever been subjected to 

 the only conclusive test, that of sjiinning, let us consider the feasibil- 

 ity of producing the typical fleece of the Angora goat, by means of 

 crosses, by reference to admitted physiological principles, and the 

 results in analogous cases. The illustrious naturahst, M. de Quatre- 

 fages, who has recently discussed, in his lectures at the INIuseum d' His- 

 toire naturelle, and in the Revue des Deux Mondes,t the principles 

 which govern the formation of races, remarks that "there is one law 

 in crossing which is constantly verified; each of the two authors tends 

 to transmit to the product at the same time all its qualities good or 

 bad." This tendency he admits is modified by the predominance 

 in one or the other, of the power of transmissibility. "When this 

 power is equal in the two parents the product will have an equal 

 mixture of the qualities of the parents ; there will be a predomi- 

 nance of the qualities of one where this power of transmissibility is 

 unequal. The inequality of the power of transmissibility appears to 

 be much greater when the races are nearest each other, for sometimes 

 the crossing between such races gives a product which seems to be- 



*The conviction is extending among intelligent wool growers in this country of 

 the importauca of preserving the varieties of woolly fibre, each in its own char- 

 acter, purity and excellence, and free from that "mongrel type which will (/o f>ir 

 everything but is not desirable for anything." At ii meeting of the Ohio Wool 

 Growers Convention, January 7. 1S67, "Mr. K. M. Montgomery moved that the true 

 course in breeding sheep is to keep breeds entirely distinct and to endeavor to pro- 

 duce the best clothing or the best combing wools, which proposition was unani- 

 mously agreed to." U. S. Economist, January 25, 18S8. ^ 



t Vide Rovue des Deux Mondes, December 15, 18C0 to April 14, 1861. 



