A Manual of Angora Goat Raising - With a Chapter on Milch Goats #261295

So far as history enlightens us, the goat has always been one of the best-known domestic animals. How long he has been in disfavor simply because he was nothing but a goat and been the subject of every funny man's joke, we are unable to say. The oldest accounts show him to have been a most useful animal in the furnishings of hair for curtains, skins for clothing and tents and meat for the tribes, yet down to this daybe has been maligned beyond reason, and that, too, by those who have worn his skin as gloves and shoes and capes, his hair as the finest of furs and ex pensive dress goods, and eaten his flesh as delicious lamb. There has recently been an awakening in the United States, especially among those who are ever ready to welcome and to dig nify any industry that is honorable and bids fair to pay dividends. And so it is that the Angora goats, the finest breed of the goat fam ily, is now receiving the credit that has long been their due. His usefulness is manifested in various ways, as is shown in the several chapters of this volume. The fleece, technically called mohair, furnishes some of the finest fabrics known among ladies' dress goods, as well as plushes, robes, rugs, etc.; their habit of browsing admits of their being put to an economic use as brush destroyers, thus enabling the farmer to subjugate his brushwood with little or no aid from the ax; their flesh is exceedingly delicate and nutritious and it finds a ready market; the milk, though not so abundant as with the established milch breeds of goats, is richer than cow's milk, and approaches very closely human milk in qual ity; their tanned skins are not suitable for shoe leather, owing to their peculiar texture, but good work gloves and morocco for book binding are largely made from them; their pelts, when properly dressed, make rugs and robes of striking beauty and great utility; owing to their freedom from goat odor, so well known of common goats, and especially of their great attractiveness and docility, they make the very finest pets for children; a few of them among a flock of sheep are in a measure a protection to the sheep against the invasion of dogs; their manure is noticeably helpful to the grass which springs up under them as they clear away the under brush.