1863. 



THE ILLINOIS FAKMER. 



301 



the fiue down from a thorough-bred buck would be 

 ju3t as fine as the finest Saxony wool. 



So much for the fineness of the goat wool or 

 hair, and the down. I have made these measure- 

 ments without fear tr favor —and am not afraid to 

 publish them — prove them by a competent micro- 

 Bcopist, and demonstrate them, whenever the ne- 

 cessity of the case may require it. 



Now, it is this fine down, or very fine hairs or 

 wool that is found around the roots of the general 

 fleece of the goat from which the genuine Cash- 

 mere shawls are made. 



I stated the foregoing to the man who had made 

 the purchase, and I added that the best and largest 

 thorough-bred ewe or buck would yield a few 

 ounces only of this down of which shawls are made, 

 at a sheering. I told him furthermore, that the 

 general fleece might weigh from four to six or 

 seven pounds ; and as it was no finer than Cots- 

 wold or Leicester wool, I did not think i'ts commer- 

 cial value would be anymore than that of good 

 combing wools, which in ordinary times was about 

 twenty-five cents. 



Now, as to the proof that the genuine Cashmere 

 shawls are made from the down and not from the 

 fleece, I will quote my authorities, and Mr. Ogden, 

 or any one else, may controvert them if he or they 

 see proper and can do so successfully. My first 

 authority is lire's Dictionary of Arts, Mrnufac- 

 tures, &c.. Vol. I , Second Amei"ican Edition, D. 

 Appleton & Co., N. Y., 1843, page 273. 



''The material of the Cashmere shawls is the 

 downy wool found about the roots of the hair of 

 the Thibet goat." * * * "The quantity of fine 

 fleece or down afforded by each animal annually 

 is from one-half to three-quarters of a pound." * * 

 "Its price a few years back at Paris was seventeen 

 francs per kilogi-amme ; that is about six shillings 

 the pound, avoirdupois." * * * "The oriental 

 Cashmere shawls are wove by processes ex- 

 tremely slow, and consequently costly ; whence 

 their prices are very high. They are still sold in 

 Paris at from 4,000 to 10,000 francs a piece, and 

 from 100 to 400 pounds sterling in London." 



The next authority is the Encyclopaedia Britan- 

 ica, quoted by J. Smith Homans in his Cyclopaedia 

 of Commerce, Harper & Brothers, N. Y., 1858, 

 page 281, article, Cashmere. 



" These shawls owe their peculiar beauty and 

 fine texture to the wool which is brought from 

 Thibet, lying at a distance of a month's journey to 

 the nor I beast. The wool forms the inner coat with 

 which the goat is covered, and the breed is pecul- 

 iar to Thibet ; all attempts to introduce it into In- 

 dia or Persia have invariably failed." 



In Vol. IV, of Appleton's New American Cyelo- 

 psedia, pages 513, 514, will be found an article de- 

 tailing the process of manufacturing the genuine 

 Cashmere shawls from the Thibet goat down, also 

 the process employed by the French of imitating 

 these shawls from the wool or hair of the Angora 

 goat. It appears from the same article that Messrs. 

 Jaubert, Ternaux and others in France, and Mr. 

 Taylor of Essex in England, imported some of the 

 crosses of the Thibet and Tartar variety of goat to 

 France and England, but "the down they furnish- 

 ed proved, however, to be of too little in quanti- 

 ty to be of value ; but by crossing the breed with 

 the Angora goat, the downy product was largely 

 increased." Whether the article in Appleton's 

 Cyclopaedia is reliable or not I am not prepared 



to state ; but if it is reliable, then the "Cashmere" 

 men in the West are laboring under a great mis- 

 take. They have in some places advertised their 

 animals as "Angora goats," but the Appleton arti- 

 cle says "Dr. J. B. Davis of Columbia, S. C, while 

 employed a few years since, by the Turkish Gov- 

 ernment, in experimenting on the growth of cotton 

 iu the Ottoman empire, succeeded in securing 

 eleven pure breed Thibet goats, which he brought 

 to his native State, from whence the goat hag 

 been introduced into Tennessee, where it is said to 

 thrive. In 185*7 the wool raised in Tennes^aee 

 brought $8,50 per pound — the purchasers in New 

 York proposing to send it to Scotland, to have it 

 manufactured into shawls." I venture to say that 

 that was the best sale ever made of Cashmere wool, 

 and much better than will be made during the 

 present or next wool season. 



Now, Messrs. Editors, I have made diligent in- 

 quiry in New York city, and of our own Cashmere 

 men here, with respect to these Scotch Tennessee 

 Cashmere shawls, but up to the present writing, 

 (August 1, 1863,) have been unable to learn any- 

 thing in regard to them. It appears to me that if 

 the Cashmere men in Ohio or Tennessee had suc- 

 ceeded in getting shawls made, that some one of 

 the exhibiters of Cashmeres at some one of our 

 State Fairs would have been able to inform the 

 awarding committees before this time, and it would 

 in some shape or other have found its way into the 

 annual report of the State Board of Agriculture, 

 and have been presented to at least thirty thou- 

 sand readers. Thus much for the Cashmere 

 shawls. 



Mr. Ogden truly says "He (the Colmmbus gen- 

 tleman) occupies a place where there should be no 

 prejudice, but instead, unbounded liberality and 

 encouragement to those who lay out large sums of 

 money for the introduction of new and valu^tble 

 animals." No prejudice ! calls to mind a lecture : 

 which Epicurus read to Theon, in which he con- 

 fesses that at seventy years oi age he was not free 

 from prejudice, although he had labored hard all 

 his lifetime to be free from it. What then, is to 

 be expected of a Buckeye at half the age of the Gre- 

 cian philosopher ? I have endeavored to persuade 

 myself that I was free from prejudice so far as the * 

 Cashmere goats were concerned — at least some <rf 

 the Board were strongly inclined to think that I 

 was prejudiced in favor of them. Then as to "un- 

 bounded liberality and encouragement to those 

 who lay out large sums of money for the intro- 

 duction of new and valuable animals," all that I 

 can say is that I, in person, individually, with my 

 family, collectively, patronize every — every — me- 

 nagerie that "comes to town." His insinuation 

 that I own a fine flock of sheep will make some of 

 my neighbors think that I am "getting along in 

 the world," for during the seven years that I have 

 resided in Columbus I have owned neither horse, 

 cow, sheep, hog or dog — one of my daughters had " 

 a kitten once, given her as a present. 



So far as Caiihmere goats are concerned, I hare 

 done for them what I could without jeopardizing 

 my integrity, or bringing the goats in conflict with ' 

 other interests, and when my opinion of them was 

 solicited, I have given it frankly, freely, and in 

 substance the same as I gave it to the gentleman 

 who made the four hundred dollar purchase from. I 

 Mr. Ogden. I have never said "humbug," but 

 deemed it my duty to advise all who solicited my 



^' ■ i . T p -w.* . \r I il l atf iiiil 



