1911. 
ANGORA GOATS OR SHEEP. 
Will you tell me what you think of Angora goats as a 
means of clearing land? I have a good many acres of 
land that was burned over some years ago, and the 
timber is all gone, but there is a great deal of briars and 
young cherries growing up. w. J. b. 
Allen’s Mills, I’a. 
The foregoing question is the one I hear asked 
the most frequently about Angora goats. It also 
brings to mind others that are forever coming up in 
connection with them. Do they compare favorably 
with sheep for wool, mutton, and the improvement of 
land ? Are they easily cared for, indeed, able to take 
care of themselves as we are sometimes 
led to believe? To come to the point, can 
they be reckoned profitable farm ani¬ 
mals ? At the start we may be assured 
of one thing, and that is, there is no hid¬ 
den fortune for a lazy or otherwise much 
employed man in the combination of a 
flock of purebred Angoras and a few 
acres of underbrush and weeds. Genuine 
purebred Angoras cannot be bought at 
low enough prices or in sufficient num¬ 
bers to clear up brush lands for the 
average farmer. Neither are they fitted 
for roughing it if they are to be used as 
breeders and kept at a profit. Grade 
Angoras will do the work better, are 
hardier, and can be got at reasonable 
figures, but hardly pay on a cleared farm, 
certainly not when compared to sheep. I 
should say that if W. J. B. had a large 
area of the burned-over land described, 
and it is well drained, it might pay him 
to pick up a bunch of goats and set them 
to work. They will clean things up all 
right, even to poison ivy and briars, and 
make almost a park out of a regular 
jungle. Grass will also set quicker after 
them as in the case of sheep. Two 
things must be looked out for, that the 
ground is not low and swampy and that 
there are not too many goats to the acre. 
Better give them more range and wait a 
little longer for them to do their work. 
After all their use is a matter of labor—• 
whether it is cheaper to buy goats, have 
them do the work, and then sell them 
for what they will bring, or hire men 
and horses to do it. The point in their 
favor is that you can often get goats, 
but not so often men. It is not easy to 
raise the kids under such conditions, and 
the owner will do well if he manages to 
keep up his flock, let alone any excess. 
They have been found especially valu¬ 
able in this State and in West Virginia 
for clearing the steep mountain sides for 
apple and peach orchards. 
On farms, however, with only small 
fields to clear up, I believe sheep if 
handled right will do well enough and 
still leave the farmer something of value 
on a cleared farm when the brush and 
weeds are conquered. My method is to 
fence in an acre or two and turn in a 
good-sized bunch of sheep—30 or so— 
for a few days. They seem to relish the 
change and although they are not as 
great climbers as goats or as careless 
about what they eat, still once hungry 
they strip pretty much everything that 
is green and within reach. I would state 
here that laurel is quite as dangerous for 
goats as for sheep, and that they are 
quite as likely to suffer from the same 
diseases; the purer the blood the more 
likely is sickness to get a hold among 
them. Purebred Angoras are in the 
same class with purebred sheep when it 
comes to buying and breeding them, high 
in price and a little too, valuable for the 
average farmer who cannot give them 
especial attention. Indeed, when it comes 
to handling a flock of purebred Angoras 
on your farm, if you have not found the raising of 
Wintc. iambs or the breeding of improved stock 
strenuous and exacting enough, you may well turn 
your attention to these beautiful but delicate animals. 
If you succeed with them and make a good profit 
on the outlay for labor and shelter in rearing the 
kids, you can well afford to shake hands with your¬ 
self. They suffer more severely from neglect or ex¬ 
posure than sheep, and when it comes to raising the 
young, the advantage is all with the latter. Unless 
the weather is very cold or the mother false, I con¬ 
sider a lamb that once gets on its feet and begins to 
suck a pretty safe proposition. There is, of course, 
danger from chilling or lack of food, but with' 
THE RURAL NEW-VORKER 
Angora kids tht troubles are far more numerous. 
They succumb more easily than lambs, and seem for 
a long time especially tender, even those born bright 
and full of life and motion. It is much safer, in fact 
necessary, to keep them up for some weeks while 
their mothers are on the range, while lambs run with 
their mothers from birth if necessary. There is a 
steady demand for good breeding stock at good 
prices, but whether they are high enough to pay for 
the trouble and losses only the individual breeder 
can tell. 
When we come to marketing the meat, sheep have 
the preference, and there is always a demand for 
lambs at six and seven cents a pound and up to 20 
cents for the earliest. Against all goat meat there is 
more or less of a prejudice, and just as old sheep are 
usually hard to sell, old goats are just about as hard 
to give away. Kid meat is undoubtedly tender and 
with possibly as good a savor as venison, but it does 
the grower about as much good as it does a squab 
raiser to know that his birds are equal to quail. He 
cannot get anything but kid and squab prices, and its 
not much comfort to him to imagine that the middle¬ 
man may be getting the benefit of the doubt. It 
surely is strange what a little cold storage and a 
faulty memory will do in the way of putting a wild 
1161 
and costly flavor to such an honest domestic product. 
As for wool against mohair, there seems to be a 
greater range of grades in the mohair according to 
the amount of Angora blood, anywhere from seven 
or eight cents to 30 and 40 cents a pound, the average 
weight being three pounds to the goat, or anywhere 
from a quarter up to $1.20, and it is a poor sheep 
that does not shear over a dollar to a dollar and a 
half with prices ranging from 15 to 30 cents, as they 
have in the past three years. Further, added to $3 to 
$5 for a lamb a year, we find the ewe paying well on 
an investment of $6 to $8 and quite capable of doing 
a good bit of clearing of land as well as 
of profit. I would say that if a man has 
the money to put into a good flock of An¬ 
goras and buildings for their best care 
and is doing it for cash profit, he would 
better try sheep first. If he is just after 
clearing land, his labor situation will an¬ 
swer the question for him, and he can 
probably get a grade flock at reasonable 
prices of someone who has finished clear¬ 
ing. Among the fruit growers of Mary¬ 
land, E. P. Cohill, Washington Co., Md., 
has been active in promoting the use of 
Angora stock in this regard, and could 
probably locate a flock that would an¬ 
swer for W. J. B. r. b. 
HONORABLE TREE AGENT TALKS. 
For some time I have read your ar¬ 
ticles about the fruit tree agents. In 
your issue of November 11 you invite 
the honorable agents to give their side. I 
have sold fruit trees for a number of 
years, right here in the community where 
I live, always as an agent, never as a 
dealer, and have as yet to have one dis¬ 
satisfied customer. The guarantee of a 
good nursery is back of every tree I sell. 
This firm sells its stock at fair prices. 
They pay me a fair commission on my 
sales, and in nearly every instance the 
sales I have made are because of my 
soliciting; and many of our farmers and 
town people are raising their own fruit, 
where, but for my efforts, they would be 
buying from wagons or doing without. 
As to their buying cheaper, I know 
mail order houses Selling through cata¬ 
logues or advertising, in nearly every 
case the purchaser pays his money in 
advance, pays the freight and takes the 
stock, no matter what it is nor in what 
condition. He has paid his money and 
takes what he gets. In my transactions, 
my firm delivers the goods in first-class 
condition. They can be inspected by 
purchaser, and if not up to specification, 
or in bad condition, he is not bound to 
take them. 
I think some of those selling nursery 
stock need all the condemnation you can 
give. As an illustration, the man who 
goes around getting orders, then goes to 
some small grower, and takes cull stock, 
labels it to suit his order, and usually at 
prices as high as or higher than first- 
class nursery companies charge. This is 
an age of the salesman, and I don’t know 
why an honest man has not as honorable 
a job selling nursery stock for an up-to- 
date nursery firm as he would selling 
farm machinery, boots and shoes, grocer¬ 
ies, dry goods, etc. Your contention is 
that the grower can buy cheaper by buy¬ 
ing direct, but all things considered why 
is it so in nursery stock, any more than 
in other lines? The merchant buys most 
of his goods from the salesman. He 
could buy direct, yet the bulk of trade is 
bought through the drummer. I think 
you are a little twisted when you say: 
“The grower gets about six cents for 
cherry, and 10 cents for apple." Did you 
ever know a good nursery company to sell cherry 
for less than apple? I would like to see what a cherry 
at six cents looks like. It would probably come 
through the mail in an envelope. 
I sell apples by the 100 for $20’; pears, per 100, $30; 
plums, per 100, $30; cherries, $35; peaches, $9, and 
do not feel I am robbing anyone, nor getting more 
than first-class stock, true to name, and delivered in 
first-class condition, grown and guaranteed by a re¬ 
sponsible, reputable firm, is worth. g. h. ray. 
Ohio. 
R. N.-Y.—Every honorable tree agent or nursery 
firm that we have met has denounced the fakes and 
frauds who have discredited the trade. ’We are glad 
to let it be known that there are honorable men in 
the business and if they can prove that they offer 
our readers superior bargains we want them to do so. 
A MOWING MACHINE WITH GASOLINE POWER. Fig. 468. 
TWO IMPROVED CHESTNUTS FROM OHIO. Fig. 469. 
A COUPLE OF NEW JERSEY LAMBS Fig. 470. 
