Chapter XXV. 



The 'British Coat Society. 



As this book seeks to include everything interesting 

 to goat-keepers, it would scarcely fulfil its purpose with- 

 out a chapter dealing with the British Goat Society, an 

 institution that has done so much in the last thirty years 

 to encourage goat-keeping and to improve the goat. Such 

 a society had been a pet scheme of the present writer's 

 as far back as the early 'seventies, when the first 

 edition of this book was written. No serious effort was 

 made, however, to put the idea into practice until the 

 Kilburn Show of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England in June, 1879, when, with a view to securing 

 the introduction of goat classes into the schedule, a prize 

 fund was opened, and the names of some fifty subscribers 

 were obtained, all of whom were willing afterwards to 

 form a syndicate to further the interests of goat-breeders. 

 A meeting of those interested was called at the Dairy 

 Show on the i6th of October, 1879, when it was formally 

 resolved to establish a society to be called the British Goat 

 Society, and a provisional Committee was elected. This 

 was followed by the holding of a general meeting during 

 the Cattle Show week two months later, on which occasion 

 a president (the Earl of Rosslyn) and Committee were 

 elected, and the hon. secretary and treasurer were 

 appointed. 



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