2 MODERN MILK GOATS 



choice milk goats from Wales to Virginia. Similarly in 

 the record of Xew England we find many references to 

 goats and to the methods by which they were handled. 

 But by the middle of the seventeenth centiuy goats ap- 

 pear less and less frequently in the records of these hvo 

 typical colonies, while the rapid growth of interest in 

 other forms of live stock, especially horses and cows, is 

 indicated by abundant data. 



The Degeneracy of the Goat in America. — It is 

 plain, then, that in spite of these records of goat impor- 

 tations the interest of the settlers centered rather early 

 in dairy cows. In the subsequent history of American 

 agriculture we note the rapid and admirable develop- 

 ment of the various breeds of cows, while the goats, few 

 in number, were until recently pushed to the backgroimd. 

 They liecame ol)jects of scorn and derision, leading a 

 precarious existence for the most part in the suburbs of 

 large cities, in the hands of the later Irish and Mediter- 

 ranean immigrants of tlie poorer class. 



It is these outcast inliabitants of the back alleys and 

 outskirts of our cities, the neglected descendants of the 

 English and Welsh stock of our earlier settlers, that have 

 come to be known as the " native "" or "" American "' goat, 

 answering also to the epithets "' conmion " or " scrub " 

 goats, to distinguish them from our more recent importa- 

 tions of valuable and liighly bred milk stock. 



