[218] 



on the animaPs back, and on being separated from it, bears 

 a close resemblance to the finest fur, or to Saxony wool, and 

 is especially like the true Cashmere mohair, out of which 

 the most valuable shawls, etc., are made. A friend who was 

 traveling in Asia sent me a sample of mohair, which exactly 

 resembles this fine ivool of the first cross, having also 

 some of the coarse hair, and of the cuticle in it, showing 

 that it had been shed, and not shorn. The two products of 

 the half and of the three-quarter blood being nearly of the 

 same length, they cannot be separated by shearing, and to 

 gather it by combing it out of the hair on the backs of the 

 animal is too tedious. The specimen to which I have al- 

 luded is most probably the product of some other species of 

 wool-bearing goat, and not of a half-blood cross of different 

 species, and is doubtless the pure Cashmere. 



If the half-blood female kid is bred to a pure Angora 

 buck, the product will be similar, except that the wool will 

 be longer in proportion to the degree of Angora blood ; and 

 sometimes long enough to be separated by being shorn from 

 the animals so as to be cut over the ends of the coarse hair. 

 The wool will be long and fine enough for many uses in 

 manufacture, but there will generally be so much of worth- 

 less hair in it as to make it of little value. On animals of 

 the third similar cross, or of seven- eighths Angora blood, 

 the fine wool will always be so much longer than the hair, 

 that it admits of practical separation in shearing ; and so of 

 those of the fourth cross, while those of the fifth cross, and 

 above it, bear wool, which, in every essential particular, re- 

 sembles that of pure bred or imported Angora goats, and 

 admits of application to all the uses of the best imported 

 mohair, or of home raised wool from pure- bred animals, 

 though it is always liable to have some hair in it. 



