180 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



THE ANGORA GOAT. 



Mr. Editor : — la the December number of the 

 Genesee Farmer, I was pleased to see an interest- 

 ing article from Dr. Davis, of South Carolina, on 

 the Cashmere or Angora goat. I have been much 

 snrprisec! that the Merino, Durham, and other stock 

 fanciers of the North have so long neglected this 

 beautiful and most valuable animal. More than 

 twenty years ago. Commodore Porter, writing from 

 Constantinople to Mr. Skinner, editor of the Amer- 

 ican Fanner, states as follows: "I believe I have 

 mentioned to you something about the Angora goat, 

 and the beautiful silkiness of their hair — finer even 

 than silk, and softer. It is of that they make the 

 Cashmere shawls, which cannot be equaled by any 

 manufacture of silk. The animal itself is a beautiful 

 and majestic creature; and I think the introduction 

 of it iato the United States would be highly advan- 

 tageous to the interest of the country. In the fine 

 fabrics it (the hair) would supersede the use of silk, 

 and I would, if I were rich enough, spare no expense 

 in introducing the breed into our country. *■ * * 

 However, as I cannot send you the animal, for want 

 of means, I shall send you a skin, and that alone has 

 cost me five dollars. * * * For fear of the mis- 

 caiTiage of the skin, I send you a specimen of the 

 hair. Here is a beautiful substance, finer and infinitely 

 stronger than the finest and strongest silk, growing 

 on the back of a hardy animal, the cost of keeping 

 of which is nothing compared to the cost of keeping 

 a sheep, and the value of the produce per pound is 

 as superior to silk as silk is to the wool of the Meri- 

 no. The value of a Cashmere shawl here, is from 

 three to four, and some five hundred dollars. The 

 best of the French silk imitations may be purchased 

 for thirty dollars. 



" The cost of the introduction of this animal into 

 the United States, would not be much for two or 

 three public- spirited men of fortune to undertake. 

 It would be nothing compared to the expense in in- 

 troducing the short-lived Merino. The goat is a 

 hardy animal, long-lived, and subject to none of the 

 diseases of the sheep. You may, by the skin I send 

 you, form some judgment of what the fleece would be 

 worth, even at the price of silk; but I assure you 

 that an Angora goat, now in my back yard, has a 

 fleece double the length of the fleece I send you." 



Most of your readers are aware, Mr. Editor, that 

 there are extensive districts of hill country in nearly 

 every State of the Union that are of but little value, 

 except for the feeding of goata, these animals always 



preferring bushes, briers and weeds to the finest grass. 

 In Kentucky alone, millions of acres of such land 

 might have been purchased a few years since (and 

 probably at present) for ten cents per acre. They 

 are covered with shrubbery and vegetation suitable 

 for the support of the goat, for the year round. 



Here, then, is a gold mine, which will prove more 

 productive to those who first adventure in it, than 

 the mines of the modern El Dorado, waiting for the 

 enterprising capitalist. If the late financial crisis' 

 has killed off our speculators, where are the Living- 

 stons and Wapsworths ot your great State? 



The Thibet goat may be obtained from both Eng- 

 land and France, and the Angora also, as I am in- 

 formed, can be had from its native country at less 

 expense by way of Smyrna, which port is frequented 

 by American ships. Dr. Davis Could doubtless give 

 all the necessary information to those anxious to ob- 

 tain them. 



Besides the Angora and Thibet, the Malta or 

 Spanish goat might be profitably introduced for dairy 

 purposes. M. De Lavergne, a late French writer, 

 speaks of it in high terms. He says: "The goat, 

 when well fed, gives an abundance of extremely rich 

 milk, which may be made into excellent cheese. In 

 France, where all agricultural industries are known, 

 although too often very imperfectly practiced, whole 

 districts owe their prosperity chiefly to the goat. 

 Such is the Mount d'Or, near Lyons, where a goat 

 yields as much as a cow elsewhere." 



I observed lately in one of the public papers, that 

 a pair ot Aagora goats had been sold at Richmond 

 forj$l,.^00, which indicates that the public attention 

 is being directed to this animal. J. Dinsmore. 



BooNB Co., Ky. 



Remarks. — It gives us pleasure to inform our cor- 

 respondent that most of the valuable goats imported 

 by Dr. Davis, and their offspring have fallen into ex- 

 cellent hands — those of Richard Peters, Esq., of 

 Atalanta, Georgia, who is one of the most enterpri- 

 sing breeders of improved stock in the United States. 

 Besides the pure bloods, he has purchased a hundred 

 or more she goats of the South, (common in Geor- 

 gia,) and is breeding up through them by imported 

 males a flne flock of half-bloods, three-fourths, and 

 so on, just as the old Merino sheep were once propa- 

 gated, to work out the native blood. "\\^e have seen 

 these beautiful animals at Mr. Peters' residence, and 

 should not be surprised if the silk-goat fever equals 

 in intensity the niulticaulis silk-worm fevci which 

 raged as an epidemic some twenty years ago. 



