266 



SMALL ANIMALS AKD INSECTS. 



[Chap. IT. 



Cashmere shawls were exhibited at the Crystal Palace, New York, valued 

 at one thousand dollars each. These were all made by the iicudle. Fabrics 

 made of Cashmere goat's fleece, it is supposed, will outwear those made of any 

 tibroiis material yet discovered. 



The Tliibet goat, one of which we saw at Dr. Davis's, differs from the 

 Cashmere materially. The outward appearance is that of a very coarse- 

 haired animal; but there is an under-coat of long, white, silky wool, which 

 weighs about a pound when combed out. Dr. Davis thought this like the 

 wild goat of the Eocky Mountains. Who knows if thc?y are identical I 



Dr. Davis imported, also, the Scinde goat, which comes from Scinde, at 

 the mouth of the Indus. This was a remarkably large goat, with monstrous 

 pendulous ears. 



A goat used in Malta is the best milker of the family. A good ewe gives 

 a gallon a day. Goats' milk, in all Eastern countries, particularly in mala- 

 rious districts, is considered more healthy than the milk of cows ; and some 

 learned physicians in this country declare that cows' milk, in malarious dis- 

 tricts, is the moving cause of many attacks of bilious fever. In this view of 

 the subject, it may be well to inquire whether it would not be to the advant- 

 age of the people, in a sanitary as well as pecuniary point of view, to intro- 

 duce the improved breeds of goats into all sections reputed subject to mala- 

 rious diseases. 



297. BrecdiD!!^ Fish for Food on the Farm. — We do not feel willing to close 

 the chapter upon animals on the farm, without calling attention to the sub- 

 jec-t heading this paragraph. 



Fish are the least costly food that man can obtain ; yet, owing to the 

 scarcity, the labor of taking them out of the water — which is all the expense 

 attending their production — has become so great, that fish are sold in our 

 market at nearly as high a price per pound as meat. Salmon are really 

 higher than choice cuts of either beef or mutton. And yet salmon can be 

 grown at very trifling expense. 



We have long been producing oysters by artificial means, without which 

 our market could not be supplied ; and yet, with that fiict before our eyes, 

 very few attempt to produce fish by an equally easy process. One fact of 

 importance, in proof of the benefit of simply protecting fish from being 

 taken in the spawning season, is the following : 



" In the river Foyle, in the north of Ireland, by a steady perseverance in 

 a proper system of protection, the amount of salmon taken was raised from 

 an average of 43 tuns annually, in 1823, to that of 300 tuns in 1842 ; while 

 in the small river of Newport, in the county of Mayo, in which the salmon 

 was formerly unprotected by law, and consequently taken at all periods of 

 the year, within three years after the introduction of parliamentary regula- 

 tions enforcing their protection during the breeding season, the annual take 

 was increased from half a tun of fish to eight tuns of salmon and three tuns 

 of white trout, with a certainty of a still higher increase. 



" In view of the great augmentation in the price of all the articles of food 



