128 The 'Book of the Coat. 



to a couple of years, according to the extent of the pasture 

 and the nature of the soil and grasses ; but if tethered time 

 after time on the Same ground, although it may meanwhile 

 have been washed by rains and refreshed by a new growth 

 of herbage, the goat will eventually become ill. These 

 animals do not care for pasture that has been freshly 

 manured, or that has had the droppings over it, to any 

 extent, of pigs and poultry ; they like coarse grass if not 

 of rank growth, but the kind they prefer, and which suits 

 them best, is the short sweet pasturage on downs and dry 

 commons. On the latter they have the great advantage of 

 a change from the grass to the sweet and tender shoots, 

 prickly though they be, of the furze or gorse bushes, of 

 which they are extremely fond, and which, moreover, 

 contain a considerable amount of nourishment. Indeed, 

 although a goat, as I have said, enjoys grazing, it prefers 

 browsing, the heigKt of its felicity being reached 

 when it can obtain both at will, for it is the constant 

 change from one kind of grass to another, and from 

 cropping herbage to nipping off leaves and shoots, that 

 these animals delight in. 



It is this peculiar fancy for biting off tender buds and 

 barking trees, and its innate love of destruction, that 

 render the goat such an enemy to the gardener and the 

 farmer, and make it such a disagreeable, not to say 

 expensive, matter to the owner when one of these mis- 

 chievous creatures makes its way by accident into his own 

 or his neighbour's garden or fields. The only preventive 

 in such cases is the use of a tethering-chain and pin, as I 

 shall presently describe. 



An acre of grass is the least that can with ad- 

 vantage be allowed for two or three goats in order to give 

 them a frequent change of ' ' bite, ' ' so that they do not go 

 over the same spot many times in the course of a season. 

 But even then the pasturage should be varied with leaves 



