114 GOATS AND EWES. [No. 



to goats ; that is, they bark all young trees that they 

 come near ; so that, if they get into a garden, they 

 destroy every thing. But there are seldom trees on 

 commons, except such as are too large to be injured 

 by goats ; and I can see no reason against keeping a 

 goat where a cow cannot be kept. Nothing is so 

 hardy ; nothing is so little nice as to its food. Goats 

 will pick peelings out of the kennel and eat them. 

 They will eat mouldy bread or biscuit ; fusty hay, 

 and almost rotten straw ; furze-bushes, heath-thistles ; 

 and, indeed, what will they not eat, when they will 

 make a hearty meal on paper, brown or white, printed 

 on or not printed on, and give milk all the while ! 

 They will lie in any dog-hole. They do very well 

 clogged, or stumped out. And, then, they are very 

 healthy things into the bargain, however closely they 

 may be confined. When sea voyages are so stormy 

 as to kill geese, ducks, fowls, and almost pigs, the 

 goats are well and lively ; and when a dog of no kind 

 can keep the deck for a minute, a goat will skip about 

 upon it as bold as brass. 



191. Goats do not ramble from home. They come 

 in regularly in the evening, and if called, they come 

 like dogs. Now, though ewes, when taken great care 

 of, will be very gentle, and though their milk may be 

 rather more delicate than that of the goat, the ewes 

 must be fed with nice and clean food, and they will 

 not do much in the milk-giving way upon a common ; 

 and, as to feeding them, provision must be made pret- 

 ty nearly as for a cow. They will not endure con- 

 finement like goats ; and they are subject to nume- 

 rous ailments that goats know nothing of. Then the 

 ewes are done by the time they are about six years 

 old ; for they then lose their teeth ; whereas a goat will 

 continue to breed and to give milk in abundance for a 

 great many years. The sheep is frightened at every- 

 thing, and especially at the least sound of a dog. A 

 goat, on the contrary, will face a dog, and if he be 

 not a big and courageous one, beat him off. 



192. I have often wondered how it happened that 

 none of our labourers kept goats ; and I really should 



