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goat, which is obtained by combing it out. Like some 

 furred animals, the Angora goat wears two distinct and dif- 

 ferent suits of clothing, and mainly at different seasons. 

 One is short, stiff, coarse, and of no commercial Value ; the 

 other is long in proportion to the degree of blood, and is 

 lustrous, soft, silky, and elastic. The animal is born with a 

 covering of the first, which in a few weeks drops out, and 

 is simultaneously replaced by the second, or the fine wool, 

 which in its time also drops out, and is similarly superseded 

 by the first ; the animals wearing the short, coarse hair in 

 the spring and early summer, and the long fine wool in 

 summer, fall and winter. When the wool of the Angora 

 goat is being shed, the cups or bulbs in the skin which pro- 

 duced the fibers are also shed, as well as the cuticle or out- 

 side skin. This is a great peculiarity of the Angora goat ; 

 but a still greater one, and of far more practical importance, 

 is its capacity to transfer, or to impart this rare quality to 

 other goats which do not possess it. The males certainly 

 have this power in a high degree : and the female Angora 

 bred to a common male, will no doubt impart the same 

 quality, but probably not in so high a degree. The kid of 

 an Angora buck, out of a native ewe, invariably has in its 

 skin those bulbs or cups which produce and secrete the fine 

 wool of the Angora, or wool-bearing goat, while it has the 

 power to secrete the hair also, as its ancestry, on the dam 

 side, always had. The wool of goats'' is finer, longer, or 

 thicker in different individuals of the same blood, just as is 

 the case with sheep; and like sheep, also, the same animal 

 produces finer wool when young than when advanced in life. 

 But the wool of the half-blood kid or goat is of a standard 

 fineness of full-blood or of pure-bred Angora goat's wool, 

 but it is short. The wool and the hair of the half-blood 

 grow together, and seem to constitute but one covering ; but 

 a close inspection shows the different fibers, issuing from 

 different bulbs in the same skin ; and when the shedding 

 season arrives, the fine wool may be combed out of the hair 



