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value in its daily search for food which is the representative 

 of so much manual labor economized in the complete de- 

 struction of briers and bushes. The Angora goat is the 

 only agent outside of hired labor that will serve this purpose, 

 and his insatiate appetite for buds and leaves is the motive 

 power to his energy, that never tires so long as a bush or 

 brier is in sight. 



Col. B. F. Cockrill informs me that he annually expended 

 three hundred dollars in cutting blackberry bushes from his 

 grass lots until he obtained a flock of Angoras, which have 

 entirely cleaned his farm of briers ; his experience is only 

 a repetition of my own. 



JOSEPH PHILIPS. 



Nashville, Tenn., Sept, 2, 1879. 



MANUFACTURE OF GOAT FLEECE. 



(Agricultural Eeport of 1867.) 



Mr. Israel S. Diehl, formerly United States Consul at 

 Batavia, Java, was deputed to visit Europe the past year to 

 investigate the manufacture of Angora or Cashmere fleeces, 

 with reference to its introduction into the United States. 



The acclimation of these goats in this country is an es- 

 tablished fact. For several years, in different parts of the 

 Union, the Angora goat has been bred, both pure and 

 crossed with our native goat. Far from deteriorating by 

 the transfer, as had been predicted, it is found that in some 

 parts of the country even the unmixed breed of the im- 

 ported goats has shown evident signs of improvement re- 

 sulting from the change. This branch of pastoral industry 

 has begun to assume very considerable prominence, as is in- 

 dicated by the fact that during the past year not less than 

 $100,000 have been paid for these goats in Ohio alone. 



In order to test the quality of the fleeces produced in this 

 country, Mr. Diehl, prior to his departure for Europe, col- 

 lected specimens from the different flocks and localities, from 



