136 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



March 



heat and cold. It needs the shelter of a shed or 

 barn in wintry and stormy weather, and will lie 

 anywhere on the floor, prefen-ing a board to a bed. 

 Its natural activity and nimbleness, together with 

 a capricious disposition, fit this creature to enjoy a 

 state of freedom. When roaming wild, on its na- 

 tive mountains, it loves to climb the most danger- 

 ous and inaccessible places, clinging on the verge 

 of precipices by its wide-spreading and sharp- 

 edged hoofs, and defying the pursuit of the hunt- 

 er. This inclination it manifests in domestic life, 

 by scaling sheds, walls, Avood-piles, &:c., with great 

 agility. But the goat will bear confinement ex- 

 tremely well, contiiiuing in good health and yield- 

 ing the usual quantity of milk. On shipboard it 

 is healthier than any other domestic animal, and 

 is highly valued on account of its s]3ortiveness, its 

 familiarity, and its ability to give milk upon such 

 waste food as is there obtainable. 



The milk of the female goat is sweet, rich and 

 nourishing. It has the body and smoothness of 

 cream, is viscid and strengthening, little produc- 

 tive of oil, but abundant in the matter of cheese. 

 In tea and coffee it is far superior to cows' milk, 

 and will go at least as far again in imparting color 

 and flavor. In all kinds of cooking it is equally 

 excellent. It has no peculiar or unpleasant taste 

 and is not aff"ected by what the creature cats. On- 

 ion tops have been given to the females, by way of 

 experiment, without imparting an oniony taste to 

 the mUk. I consider two pints of goat's milk to 

 be as good in a family, in every way, as tliree pints 

 of cows' milk. 



For most feeble and sickly children, as well as 

 those in health, it is invaluable. It does not tend 

 to form curds in the stomach, as cows' milk does, 

 and is therefore frequently prescribed by physi- 

 cians in cases of extreme weakness. It is sold for 

 this purpose in Salem at twenty-five cents a quart. 

 Invalids abroad often resort to the mountainous 

 districts of Ireland and Scotland to derive benefit 

 from the use of this article which is there known as 

 "goats' whey." Mr. Colman noticed that the Irish 

 mountaineers, about the Lake of Killarney, kept 

 from one to thirty goats apiece, for the sake of the 

 tourists to that delightful region. In Spain and 

 Portugal, goats are abundant, and in Lisbon, their 

 milk is more commonly used than that of cows. 

 The goats in those countries are driven into the 

 cities in the morning, and milked at the doors of 

 the houses. The district in France most celebrat- 

 ed for goats is the Canton Mont d'Or, where, in a 

 space not exceeding two leagues (six miles) in di- 

 ameter, upwards of eleven thousand are kept, 

 chiefly to supply the city of Lyons with cheese. 

 There are several other interesting particulars re- 

 lating to the goat, which I will give in another 

 paper. G. L. Stueeter. 



Salem, Jan., 18G2. 



Exchange of Seeds. — It is a good rule in 

 agriculture, to eff'ect a change of seeds as often as 

 once in every two or three years. Why it is that 

 the seeds of most of our field crops or grains do 

 better when cultivated on lands at a slight remove 

 from those on which they were matured, is a ques- 

 tion which science has as yet been unable satisfac- 

 torily to solve ; but such is the undeniable fact, 

 and indeed is so obvious, and so clearly corrobo- 



rated by all experience, as no longer to admit of 

 doubt. The winter and early spring are favora- 

 ble seasons for exchanging, as well as for procur- 

 ing new and improved varieties of seeds, plants 

 and scions. 



ALPINE SCENERY. 



In Switzerland there are thousands of places 

 and objects of interest at every turn, and yet how 

 few of them are seen or even heard of by that vast 

 array of crusaders, who, alpenstock in hand, hunt 

 after the magnificent ! I will take one place, for 

 example. Lying high back from the Lake of 

 Thun, is the Justis-Thal, a narrow valley of singu- 

 lar grandeur and wildness. On either side, walls 

 of rock tower perpendicularly two or thi-ee thous- 

 and feet ; a gushing stream pours with giddy roar 

 through its very heart ; a straggling chalet may be 

 met with here and there at long intervals ; whilst 

 huge boulders, torn by the action of time from the 

 mountain-ridges, strew the few grassy spots in 

 what it seems paradoxical to call a plain, and 

 which aff'ord scanty pasture to a drowsy flock of 

 goats and cows. 



But the most remarkable phenomenon of this 

 scarred valley is the Schafloch, a huge ice-cavern, 

 bored, as it were, in the solid rock, nine hundred 

 feet above the level of the valley, apparently inac- 

 cessible to human approach. Neither the peas- 

 ants of the village, nor the mountaineers, could 

 give any account of the interior. The oldest inhab- 

 itant did believe that some bold adventurer in his 

 younger days had reached it, but it was a danger- 

 ous enterprise, forsooth, and even that exploit had 

 faded into tradition. Fortunately, on the out- 

 skirts of the town of Thun — it might have been at 

 Ililterfingen, whose pretty church, on a beechen 

 knoll, overlooks the bright waters of the lake — 

 there dwelt, I heard, a middle-aged man, who had 

 really once visited the cavern, but that was many 

 summers ago, and who even boasted that his mem- 

 ory of the track still served him well enough to 

 reach it once more. He would venture to act as 

 guide, he said, should I or my friends like to ex- 

 plore that isolated region. "1 will leave my wife 

 and children in pledge with the syndic," he added, 

 "if I don't bring you back again safe." 



We wound slowly up out of the village by a 

 zigzag pathway, at first broad enough for a horse 

 to traverse. At last, after a four hours' ascent, we 

 wended our way through what seemed to be a nat- 

 ural gate-way of the mountain, and suddenly con- 

 fronted the valley of the Justis-Thal. A new scene 

 now opened before us. A small plateau lay at 

 our feet, which presented a scene of desolation it 

 would be as difficult to forget as it would be to 

 describe. In addition to the mighty boulders 

 which seemed scattered about by the hands of gi- 

 ants, or the sons of Anak, struggling in an angry 

 mood, it was evident that the spot had once been 

 a forest. Some pines, towering a hundred feet, 

 still stood erect ; others had been snapped off mid- 

 way, and their lofty heads dropped downward to 

 the era-th ; otliers, again, lay ])rone on the ground, 

 singly, or huddled together like corpses on a bat- 

 tle-field. But the most extraordinary ])henomcnon 

 was their trunks and branches, which had been 

 literally stripped of their bark. Some were black, 

 as though scarred by lightning ; others were al- 

 ready converted into the softest touchwood, wliich 



