14 BUEEAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



B. Davis, of Columbia, S. C, was recommended, and he received the 

 appointment. The work done by Dr. Davis appeared to be highly 

 gratifying to the Sultan, and so, upon his return, in 1849, the Sultan, 

 desiring to reciprocate the courtesy of the President, presented him 

 with nine of the choicest goats in his dominion. Col. Richard Peters, 

 writing in 1876, says of these animals: "These doubtless were selected 

 from the herds of Angora, a district of country lying among the 

 Taurus Mountains, which traverse Asiatic Turkey, and which derives 

 its name from its principal city, situated about 200 miles east of Con- 

 stantinople.'' It does not seem, therefore, that Dr, Davis encountered 

 any great difficulty in securing this first importation of Angora goats 

 into this country; but the following extract from the Country Gentle- 

 man of 1856, somewhat romantic and a little exciting, was signed by 

 one Richard Allen, of Tennessee, The article, in full, shows that he 

 was probably of that class of writers of history whose personal interests 

 were to be subserved: 



It may not be out of place in this connection to remark that great credit is due to 

 Dr. Davis, of South Carolina, for the enterprise he exhibited in the introduction of 

 the goat to this country. He was at the time in the employ of the Turkish Govern- 

 ment, at a salary of $15,000, engaged in experiments upon the growing of cotton in 

 the Sultan's dominions. He went out upon the recommendation of President Polk, 

 to whom an application was made by the Turkish Government for the services of 

 some competent Southern gentleman familiar with cotton culture. While there he 

 determined to procure the goat from its native wilds. The story of the journey would 

 be too tedious for my brief letter, and I will merely add that, with an expensive outfit 

 at Constantinople, a perilous journey of months, and the loss of many men and camels, 

 he succeeded in capturing and carrying off eleven of the famous animals, whose fleeces, 

 in the shape of shawls, are so highly prized and coveted by the ladies of all civilized 

 nations and for which prices almost startling have been paid by the wealthy. 



Such a tale of fortitude and determination, added to the information 

 in another paragraph in the same letter which stated that the entire 

 yield of the particular flock about which he was then writing had been 

 engaged in the city of New York at $8,50 per pound, from which 

 point it was to be shipped to Paislej^, Scotland, for manufacture into 

 the shawls mentioned above, no doubt assisted in the sale of goats at 

 $1,000 each. 



In 1868, Hon. George A. Porter, of Baltimore, himself a breeder 

 of Angoras, wrote to Mr. Diehl that, while occupying the post of 

 United States consul at Constantinople, he "procured and shipped for 

 Dr. Davis the first of these goats that were ever brought to this coun- 

 try." Just how much Mr. Porter was acting upon the courtesy of the 

 Sultan it is difficult to ascertain. 



Of the nine Angoras imported by Dr. Davis, seven were does and 

 two were bucks. Besides these, according to Colonel Peters, there 

 came in the same lot one purebred Tibet doe, several head of crosses 

 between the Angora and Tibet goats, and quite a number of grade 

 does bred from the common short-haired ewes of the country and his 

 Angora bucks. Plate I shows a pair of the Angoras imported by Dr. 



