GOAT-RAISING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. 



ANGORA GOATS. 



ANGORAS AND MILK GOATS DISTINGUISHED. 



Goats may be divided into two classes. The mohair-bearing goats, such as the 

 Angora and Cashmere, comprise one class, and the other class includes the many 

 different breeds of milk goats. Some people confuse these two classes. Milk goats 

 are useful for little else than the production of milk; their coat of hair has little 

 value. The Angora is the breed that produces the valuable mohair, and is also 

 largely used on this continent as a brush-killer. As many as 400,000 goats of this 

 breed are annually sold for meat in the United States. But the Angora is not used 

 for milk production, and is never classed as a milk goat. 



Of Angoras and milk goats there are all grades from pure-breds to nondescripts. 

 Among milk goats an animal of obscure breeding may possibly be a good milker. On 

 the other hand, for the production of high-class mohair it is necessary to have an 

 Angora goat of pure or almost pure breeding. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE ANGORA GOAT. 



A pure-bred Angora is a very beautiful animal, with its pure white fleece of silky 

 hair hanging in long curly ringlets. Sometimes, as with sheep, a black animal 

 appears. Both sexes are horned, and the ears hang down like those of a lop-eared 

 rabbit. The body is generally very symmetrical, and the fleece should possess a high 

 lustre ; the more closely curled it is, the better. 



ANGORA GOATS VERSUS SHEEP. 



It should be pointed out that where conditions are suitable for sheep they will 

 prove much more profitable than Angoras. Wherever grass is plentiful, sheep, should 

 he kept; but where brush forms the chief food, goats will do better than sheep. 



Young kids are harder to rear than lambs, and well-bred Angoras seldom have 

 twins. Sheep often rear twins, and sometimes triplets. Sheep's mutton is at the 

 present time about 3 cent* per pound dearer than Angora mutton, and the income 

 from this source is naturally much greater in the case of sheep. 



The average Angora fleece weighs about 3 Ib. less than the average sheep's 

 .fleece. So that, although mohair is worth more per pound than wool, the fleece 

 brings on the average not much more than a wool fleece. 



It will be readily seen, therefore, that cultivated farms are the place for sheep, 

 while Angoras find their place on wild and uncultivated brush land. 



ANGORA GOATS AS BRUSH-KILLERS. 



In many parts of the United States Angoras are used primarily for keeping down 

 brushwood growth. On logged-off lands the young growth starts up very quickly, 

 and soon the land is little better than before for agricultural purposes. If. however, 

 a sufficient number of Angora goats are turned on to the brush, they will kill off 

 all but the largest saplings by persistent browsing on the foliage and bark, and 

 convert the useless brush into mohair and mutton or venison, as some prefer to 

 call it. 



At the same time the land will be enriched by their droppings, and in the moist 

 sections grass and clover will come in to take the place of the brush. Goats will 

 not kill out grass, as sheep are apt to do if the grass is limited. Goats are browsers 

 by nature, while sheep are grazers. 



Goats are in a class by themselves as weed and brush destroyers. They will eat 

 most of the common weeds, including thistles, and their diet of browse includes the 

 following : Oak, cedar, buck -brush, briers, elders, grape-vine, ash, sycamore, bass- 

 wood, hickory, hazel, willow, maple, rose-bush, crab-apple, fir, pine, cascara, cherry, 

 alder, salal, poplar, elm, wild plum, and sage-brush. 



