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females, so that the kids will come in pleasant weather, and 

 as simultaneously as possible, for which, and other reasons, 

 it is preferable, commonly, to keep the adult males and 

 wethers separate from the breeding flock. The bucks are 

 said to be valuable in protecting the flock from the attacks 

 of dogs, and under my observation the goats are most com- 

 monly the attacking party, having seen them frequently 

 charge and drive away a loafing dog. They do not, by 

 flight, invite the pursuit of dogs, as sheep do ; and dogs do 

 not seem to have the same disposition to worry or to eat 

 them, which they manifest towards sheep. 



Though goats will often bite, hook, and butt each other, 

 yet they are not cross with other stock, and the males do 

 not fight and injure each other as male sheep often do. 



DISEASES AND INSECTS TO WHICH THEY ABE SUBJECT. 



Though I have been breeding these animals nearly twenty 

 years, and once had over two hundred head of them of all 

 ages, yet there has never been any epidemic disease among 

 them. During this time I have lost several by worms in 

 the nose, as with sheep, and one by a swelling of the glands 

 of the throat. A humor in the cleft of the foot, like 

 scratches in horses, has given me more trouble than all 

 other diseases. It is caused by wading through high, wet 

 grass, yields readily to strong acids, and never kills. Wash 

 the sore repeatedly in carbolic soap suds, or in turpentine, 

 and then apply a salve made of bluestone, or copperas, or 

 tar. A variety of small, long, red vermin is peculiar to 

 them ; is not fatal, and can be destroyed mainly by prepara- 

 rations of tobacco, cresylic soap, or camphor, sulphur, etc., 

 applied along the back. The great peculiarity of the 



ANGORA GOAT IS ITS FLEECE, OR RATHER ITS FLEECES. 



The hairy covering of all goats is known in commerce as 

 mohair, both the long wavy fleece of the Angora, and the 

 shorter and finer, silky, under hair of the true Cashmere 



