530 
A. S. HEATH. 
the horse was found on the American Continent. Though at 
present comparatively few in number as compared to our im¬ 
mense flocks of sheep, yet it is hoped that the goat may render 
us and all mankind a service that shall gladden the hearts of 
the hygienists of the Boards of Health, with a sublime sanitary 
service in curtailing the ravages of contagious diseases, and 
especially of that blight of human and animal life, tuberculosis. 
It seems to be a popular reputation of the goat to be able 
to convert waste paper, the bark of trees, and even tin cans 
into milk and meat, and hair for clothing, and morocco for 
boots and shoes, and kid-skin for gloves. But, better than all, 
dispensing goat vitality through their milk and meat. 
Goats seldom die from disease, but are slaughtered by the 
cold-blooded hand of man. 
It costs us immense sums to import the manufactured prod¬ 
ucts of goats. Whereas by a wise and liberal cultivation of 
this hircine tribe of domestic animals, we could save the cost of 
importation of these products, and at the same time humanely 
protect our people from the fatal plague of consumption, to 
a degree, hopefully and inconceivably great, by the supply of 
milk and meal never poisoned by the germs of disease. 
In an economic point of view, goats and their valuable pro¬ 
ducts can be raised and produced at small cost as compared 
with similar products from other domestic animals. Fully one- 
half of all the milch cows of our country—and there are about 
sixteen and a half millions—do not pay the cost of their keep 
in the value of the products they yield. And, besides, these 
products of meat, and milk and butter, and cheese, and hides of 
these cows, are honestly suspected of transmitting the malignant 
germs of fatal diseases to both man and domestic animals. The 
milk and meat supply of our dairies can only be kept free from 
the dissemination of infectious diseases by the most severe and 
arbitrary power of hygiene. And such treatment our free and 
independent sovereign agriculturists will never fully submit to, 
though reasonably certain of resultant self-interest to them¬ 
selves. 
