AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
3 
MALE CASHMERE GOAT. 
Live weight 155 lbs.; weight of fleece 7 lbs. The property of Richard Peters, of Atlanta, Ga. 
We present herewith cuts made by J. 
W. Orr, of a male and female Cashmere 
Goat, owned by Richard Peters Esq., of At¬ 
lanta, Georgia. These animals were intro¬ 
duced here from the East in 1849, by Dr. J. 
B. Davis of S. C., from whom they were 
mostly purchased by Mr. Peters, in 1853' 
His flock now consists of twenty five head. 
A few animals are owned by other gentle¬ 
men, but this is the largest collection. How 
far they may become a useful addition to the 
stock'^of the country, is not yet fully deter- 
EKGRAVBR I 
FEMALE CAS h MERE GOAT. 
Live weight, 102 lbs. ; weight of yearly fleece 4£ lbs. The property of Richard Peters, Atlanta, Ga. 
MILKING BY MACHINERY. 
It is a little surprising that there have not 
been more attempts made to construct some 
kind of machinery to perform the laborious 
operation of milking. It is estimated that 
there are in the United States at the present 
time, about seven millions of milch cows, 
each one of which must be milked twice a 
day during nine months of the year. This 
estimate is doubtless too high, and to speak 
within bounds, we will take the number at 
three millions. Allowing six minutes only 
for the time occupied at each milking, and it 
would require the constant work of sixty 
thousand persons, milking steadily ten hours 
a day—that is, each one to milk fifty cows a 
day. We have known persons who said 
they loved to milk, but there are very few 
such, and probably nine out of ten who have 
this work to do, consider it one of the most 
laborious and disagreeable operations of the 
farm. 
Now can there not be some simple, cheap 
implement constructed, which shall imitate 
the common operation of milking, and even 
perform it better than three-fourths of milk¬ 
men or milk-maids know how to do it 1 We 
throw out the suggestion for the considera¬ 
tion of ingenious mechanics. Considerable 
noise was made a year or two since about 
an apparatus for drawing off the milk with 
a little tube thrust into the teat and held 
there by a bit of India rubber. We con¬ 
demned the contrivance at the time, and for 
a year past have heard nothing of it. A per¬ 
fect milking apparatus must imitate the natu¬ 
ral method of drawing milk by the calf. The 
cow will not “give down” her usual quota 
of milk without this. The pushing, squeez¬ 
ing motion of the hands is as yet the nearest 
imitation. 
A New Hampshire Yankee has recently 
applied for a patent for a milking machine, 
arranged by attaching four long flexible 
tubes to an air-tight pail, upon the side of 
which is a small air-pump. The tubes are 
applied to the teats by means of India rub¬ 
ber sheaths or sacs. The working of the 
air pump produces a vacuum, and the milk 
runs out into the pail. The inventor is 
quite sanguine of success, but if our theory 
be correct, that the cow will not continue a 
full secretion of milk without mechanical 
manipulations upon the bag and"teats, this 
machine will also prove a failure. Experi¬ 
ment will be the only safe test of their 
value. If these machines are brought into 
market, let them be tried by milking a num¬ 
ber of cows alternately, with and without 
them. Thus; three or four cows may be 
milked with the machine for two weeks, 
and two weeks without them, and the amount 
of milk be carefully measured and noted 
each day. At the same time an equal num¬ 
ber of cows should be milked without the 
machines while the others are milked with 
them, and vice versa. This will show 
whether any increase or diminution is to be 
attributed to the manner of drawing the 
milk, or to other circumstances, such as va¬ 
riation in kind, quality, or amount of food. 
—[Ed, 
mined ; those who have given the most atten¬ 
tion to the subject appear to cherish high 
hopes of them. 
Mr. Peters says : “ That they are not the 
Thibet Shawl Goat, is proven by their total 
dissimilarity to a specimen of that breed in 
possession of the subscriber ; the latter va¬ 
riety having only an under-coating of a few 
ounces—which portion of its fleece is alone 
valuable. Works on Natural Science show 
that they are not the common Angora Goat, 
of the Province of that name in Asiatic 
Turkey, as that animal is of varied color, 
with a fleece of indifferent value. They have 
become known as “ Cashmere Goats,” from 
the pure white color and fineness of their 
fleeces, and their undoubted Eastern origin. 
The fleeces of the matured bucks weigh 
from six to seven pounds. Ewes yield from 
three to four pounds. The flesh of the 
