1868.] 419 



Proceeding from analogy to direct evidence as to the results of 

 breeding the race under consideration by means of crossing with the 

 (;ommon species, no person in Europe has examined the Angora goat 

 so thoroughly and for so long a period as M. de la Tour d'Aigucs, 

 President of the Royal Society of Agriculture of France, who in 1787 

 introduced some hundreds of these goats into Europe under the care 

 of Turkish shepherds, and established them upon the low Alps where 

 they greatly prospered. He affirms that even after the sixteenth gen- 

 eration thehiir of the crosses obtained by crossing the Angora buck 

 Avith females of the com;mn goat remained hair and although it was 

 elongated it could not be spun.* "This species is," he says, "constant; 

 and although they procreate with our goats we can never hope to 

 multiply them by crossing the races, because the vice of the mother is 

 never etfaced. If some individuals approach, more or less, the race 

 of the sire, the hair will always be shorter and too coarse to be 

 worked."! The testimony of this official head of the agriculture of 

 France is of the highest value, not only because his position led him 

 to seek the utmost advantage from the introduction of a new i-ace, 

 but because an elaborate memoic published by him shows that he had 

 'made thorough experiments in spinning and manufacturing the pro- 

 ducts of his fleeces, for which he gives minute directions. 



The observations of M. Brandt show that the thickness of the 

 hair of the pure Angora goat is from a third to a half that of the 

 common goat. This fineness of fibre is an essential spinning (juality. 

 The fibre of this species is always prepareil and spun in the form of 

 worsted of long wool, that is, the fibre is not carded or subjected to a 

 process by which the fibres are placed in every possible direction in 

 relation to each other, adhering by their serratures, but are drawn 

 out by combing so that they may be straight and parallel, the ends of 

 the fibre being covered in the process of spinning, so that the yarns 

 are smooth and lustrous. The fibres being extremely slippery they 

 will not adhei-e in spinning unless they have the requisite fineness to 

 permit many parallel fibres to be united in a yarn of a given number. 

 When the fibres are too large they require to be mixed with combing 

 wool to "carry" the fibre, as it is technically called, which diminishes 

 the lustre of the fabric. Manufacturers of worsted, who have had 

 large experience in spinning the mohair of Asia and this country, in- 

 form me that the best mohair can be spun into yarns of the number 

 forty-two, while others are with difficulty spun into yarns numbered 

 from ten to sixteen. Fibre of the latter quality is of no more value 

 than the most ordinary combing wool, except for a few exceptional 



* Sacc, Bull. supr. cit., T. v., p. 570. 

 t Idem T. iv., p. 8. 



