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DESCRIPTION, CHARACTER AND HABITS. 



As they have been so often illustrated in agricultural 

 publications, a personal description of them is not here im- 

 portant. In size they are superior to the native or common 

 goat. Wethers, when fully grown and fatted, will weigh 

 from sixty to eighty pounds, live weight. A wether of my 

 flock, two years old, has weighed, when dressed, fifty-four 

 and a half pounds net the fore quarters 18 pounds, the 

 hind quarters 21 pounds, the saddle 12 pounds, and the 

 rendered tallow 3J' pounds; the tallow much more in some 

 other cases. The color of pure bred and full-blood animals 

 is almost invariably white, though some of the earliest de- 

 scendants of imported animals were brown; some being 

 gray and some black, also, in their native country, varying 

 a little, perhaps, in species, or family of species. Their gay 

 and intelligent appearance, their cleanly habits, active and 

 playful disposition, make them attractive on a farm ; while 

 in their nature they are so docile that they may be raised so 

 as to be as familiar about the house and yard as the dog or 

 the cat. Though they have great curiosity and enterprise, 

 they also have strong local attachments, and after wander- 

 ing all day, will generally seek their usual shelter at night, 

 especially if the weather is inclement. They do not break 

 fences, or clear them at a single bound, as most other stock 

 do, but will pass through a hole which is already made, will 

 climb up a rail which leans at about forty-five degrees, or 

 will bound on top of, and then over, a low fence. Any 

 good farm fence five feet high, except stone fence, will keep 

 them securely. Like other stock, they are more trouble- 

 some after they have acquired roaming and breachy habits. 

 They bear coupling, hobbling and tethering better than any 

 other stock. 



In their diet they are almost omnivorous, eating in win- 

 ter often what they have rejected in summer. On large 

 farms much the greater portion of their diet will consist of 



