218 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



towns, in our coal and mineral regions, and along many of our public works, 

 great quantities of the common goat can be seen in use, while their value is 

 being materially enhanced by more attention to good breeding and valuable 

 crosses. Among the most valuable milkers we have the Maltese, the Swiss, 

 the Assyrian, the Syrian, the Scinde, the Spanish, and the Welsh goats. 



Under many circumstances the goat is found more valuable than either sheep 

 or swine, as goats will live and thrive where they would starve ; yielding milk, 

 wool, kids, mutton, and skins. A good goat will yield milk nearly all the year, 

 or within a few weeks of parturition, if fed and cared for. The kids should be 

 allowed to suck two weeks and then sold, especially the buck kids. The goat 

 should then yield a quart of milk at each milking or meal, three times a day, 

 say at 7 a. m., at noon, and at 7 or 8 p. m. About three months subsequent to 

 parturition the supply of milk falls off to about two quarts daily, and continues 

 so until within about three months of the next kidding, when it falls off to about 

 one quart per day. The goat should be milked three times daily, in consequence 

 of the want of capacity of her udder, for when the udder becomes charged with 

 milk, the goat lies down, ceases feeding, and no further secretion of milk takes 

 place; but relieve her by milking, and she again proceeds to feeding, and 

 secretes a fresh supply of milk far more nutritious and nourishing, and easier 

 of digestion, than that of the cow. It is not generally known that a goat 

 tethered to a certain spot will yield more milk than when permitted to roam at 

 large without restraint, but such is nevertheless the fact. The tether should 

 be attached to a long pin driven into the ground, furnished with a swivel, in 

 order that entanglement may be avoided, and shifted when a fresh supply of 

 herbage may be obtained. 



As goats are often disposed to be mischievous, and trespass upon forbid- 

 den property, either by climbing or creeping, a yoke may be made, con- 

 sisting of three pieces of wood put over the goat's neck, and fastened there in 

 a triangular form, which is found useful to prevent their getting through hedges 

 or fences, while a side line, attaching the fore foot to the hind one of the same 

 side, prevents them climbing or leaping. With these two simple contrivances 

 ;i goat may be allowed to go anywhere without being able to enter a garden 

 or field. 



The goat is a cosmopolitan; he is found rambling amid the snows of Nor- 

 way and Siberia, and basking in the sun of Africa or under the equator at 

 Singapore, Java, Central or South America. Even the more delicate and fine 

 wool-bearing varieties are found in the mountainous region and cold climate of the 

 Himalayas, Thibet, and Russia, to the 60th degree of north latitude, feeding 

 upon the scanty vegetation of that sterile soil, or luxuriating in the fertile 

 vales of Cashmere, Persia, or Natolia. It is easily sustained and perhaps more 

 readily so than any other animal. 



As the sheep follows the ox, feeding upon the gleanings, so the goat pros- 

 pers upon the scanty remains of vegetation left by the sheep, or on worn-out, 

 neglected lauds or fields, and in some places, as in Norway, feeding like the 

 reindeer, upon simple moss. 



The goat is less liable to disease than the sheep. It naturally attaches itself 

 to man, and appears to be grateful for the very few favors it receives at his 

 hands. The female commences breeding when from ten to eighteen months 

 old, and continues to breed till she is twelve, producing in temperate climates 

 one, two, or three kids at a birth, and in warmer ones from two to five. Her 

 time of gestation is about five months. She may be milked fifteen days after 

 parturition, when the milk is sweet, nourishing, and medicinal, having an 

 agreeable aromatic flavor, no doubt imparted by the herbs and wild food upon 

 which the goat feeds and delights to pasture ; and this quality renders it pecu- 

 liarly appropriate for the manufacture of cheese and butter, delicious specimens 

 of which we ate in Asia and Europe. 



