GOATS IN CITIES 13 



plum trees. Feeding goats in their stall or yard is 

 as amusing as feeding the wild ibexes at the Zoo. 

 They will stand on their hind-legs and beg, and when 

 they do obtain the coveted morsel, eat it in a very 

 dainty and well-bred manner. The list of their 

 ordinary food when stall-fed includes potatoes, 

 mangolds, turnips, cabbage-stumps, which they like 

 particularly, as being woody and tough, artichokes, 

 beans, lettuces run to seed, and even dead leaves swept 

 up in autumn, horse-chestnuts and acorns, especially 

 after they have sprouted. Most weeds are eaten by 

 goats, while ivy, and even the long-leaved water- 

 hemlock, which will kill a cow, do not hurt them. 

 When kept in towns, they give large quantities of 

 milk if fed on oats, hay and bean-meal ; and in the 

 Mont d'Or district in France they are supplied 

 with oatmeal porridge. With this varied range of 

 diet and plenty of salt, the goat is scarcely ever ill, 

 never suffers from tuberculosis (so that young children 

 are far safer from risk of contracting consumption 

 when fed on goats' milk than on that of cows), and 

 will often give of this milk ten times its own weight 

 in a year. 



In our temperate climate, and on the growing quantity 

 of small ' parcels ' of land spoilt by building and town 

 areas, there is probably room for as many goats as the 

 patrons of the British Goat Society could desire, even 



