60 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
A PAIR OF CASHMERE OR 
[ COPYRIGHT SECURED.] 
ANGORA GOATS. — Drawn ami Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
In many of these States the average yield of 
wheat is already reduced one half, and will sink 
still lower without a change of policy. We 
want to sell from all our farms, East and "West, 
more animal products and less vegetable. At 
the present prices, and with good facilities, it 
will pay much better to sell beef, mutton, butter, 
and cheese, rather than hay and grain. As a 
rule we want to consume the great bulk of the 
vegetable crops upon the farm for the sake of 
improving the soil. If there is a good system 
of saving manures, the farmer can keep his 
hay and grain at home. He can raise fine 
stock to sell, horses, working cattle, sheep, 
beeves, butter and cheese, for these and other 
animal products imply an increase in the stock 
of fertilizers and better field crops in the future. 
Some regions, favorably situated for liming the 
land and getting cheap manures, can afford to 
sell wheat, but these are exceptional cases. 
Selling grain, as a rule, is onlv selling one's farm 
Dj installments. The land is all the while 
growing poorer, and unless there are adventi- 
tious circumstances to give it value, its market 
price is diminishing. Land that will produce 
thirty-five bushels of wheat to the acre is worth 
probably a hundred dollars an acre or more. 
Land that yields but ten would be dear at a 
quarter the price. Many a grain selling farmer 
wakes up at las*, to find that his farm has slid 
away from beneath his feet. Give us, then, more 
cattle, and make more fertilizers. Farmers will 
have to wait a Hltle louger for the dividends, 
but they will inn no risk of using up their 
capital and cfejt.roying their b^sines^, 
Cashmere or Angora Goats. 
The Cashmere Goat is a variety of the com- 
mon goat, which, like the sheep, and, in fact, 
all our domestic animals, exists in an almost in- 
finite number of varieties. This, with other 
closely allied breeds, has been raised from time 
immemorial, chiefly for its beautiful fleeces. 
The hair being glossy and fine, it is used in 
weaving many delicate and beautiful fabrics, 
and in other ways. Importations of goats from 
Asia Minor have been made from time to time, 
with a view of testing their hardiness and value 
in this country. Their endurance of heat, cold, 
dry pastures, etc., and if the fleece would remain 
of the same length and fineness, were important 
questions to be solved, and these, we think, have 
received very satisfactory solutions. No doubt, 
the animal is very hardy, and the fleece remains 
fine and excellent. These Cashmere Goats feed 
upon the same food that other goats eat, almost 
all sorts of weeds included. They are also, be 
it remembered, equally destructive to trees, and 
valuable plants, and shrubbery, and will not do 
well if closely Confined. They must have range. 
The aboye picture is made up from sketches, 
taken by our artist upon the fair grounds, and 
from a photograph. It does not represent the 
ideal goat, but the animal as he is. The picture 
would fill the breeder's eye much belter if the 
back were straighter, and the tail setup upon a 
level with the top of it, but we are content with 
tin' :k curacy of the photograph in this respept! 
A gentleman largely interested in this stock 
BStilflSltea (lie number of full blooded., or nearly 
full blooded, Cashmere Goats in this country at 
present at about 10,000. This is, we think, en- 
tirely within bounds. Besides this number, 
there are grades, (half, three quarter, and seten 
eighth bloods,) almost without number, many of 
them having very fine fleeces, scattered all about. 
Extravagant ideas have been entertained in re- 
gard to the value of the fleece. It has been 
thought to be worth $3 to $6 per pound, and as 
nobody was found to give this, the fleeces have 
been stored, and most likely become food for 
moths. There never has been enough of this 
article in market to fix a price. There are a few 
small factories where it is spun and woven, and 
the proprietors of these trust to chance lots they 
can buy at low prices. A fair price is probably 
$1.50 per pound, taking the fleeces as they run. 
We have little doubt that, with the revival of 
business, there will be a market for this wool, 
and that new and interesting manufactures 
will spring up. As it is, however, there is no 
demand, and hence no sale for it. The goats, 
on the contrary, are in great demand ; 150 re- 
cently imported by Mr. Israel Diehl for Mr. C. 
S. Brown, of this city, are held at $500 a pair, 
and we hear of both higher and lower prices. 
The length of the wool of full-blooded bucks 
varies with the age, but at three years of age, it 
often reaches the length of 10 or 12 inches. The 
fleece of the ewes is much finer and more glossy, 
as a rule, and the finer and closer the fleece, the 
less length has the staple. The waves in the 
locks, which are obvious in the engraving, and 
give to it its great beauty and brilliancy, art; 
three quarters of an inch to one inch apart, 
