In the popular mind the goat is a creature of ridicule found only in dirty city alleys and subsisting on old paper or on such refuse as may be picked up along neglected roadsides. The wonderful usefulness of these hardy creatures and their steadily increasing numbers, because of merit of fleece and milk, are giving them a place and reputation among our most useful animals. In Europe the goat enjoys its greatest popularity, and there in numbers it totals up into the millions. Point out the many ways that the goat may be used in this country. In ancient times, the goat, closely related to the sheep and the deer, likes warmth and dryness and is most at home in hot climates. Originally it chose mountainous regions for its home. From time immemorial the goat has been a domestic animal. Its cradle seems to have been in central Asia, from which it has spread to Europe, Africa, America and to other parts of the world. In some communities goat meat is relished. When kept in sanitary quarters and fed clean and fresh forage the meat is considered good, especially of the young. Sometimes it passes as mutton. Mature goat meat is strong, and of nasty flavor. A great field is open for breeding flavor and quality in good flesh. The milk of goats has for a long time been greatly prized and is approved for infants and invalids. The skin of goats is was used in the Victorian era for the manufacture of kid for gloves, morocco and other fine leathers, and also for parchment in ancient times. The hair is very useful in the manufacture of brushes. Mohair comes from Angora goats and is in constant demand at good prices. Mohair skins are frequently tanned and dyed and used as rugs and coverings in some countries. In Europe goats are largely kept for their milk. Goats' milk is very nourishing on account of the great quantity of fat and albumen which it contains, and also because it is easy to digest, and comes from an animal relatively free from disease. Goats are less troubled by the ravages of disease than cattle, and their milk seems to present no danger to those that use it. If the milk has a bitter taste it is because of the food. The goat eats with satisfaction what other animals reject; it will eat wild berries, bushes, bark of trees, weeds or anything it can get. It is truly the scavenger of the farm. A few flocks of milk goats have been established in this country. The demand for these is great both here and abroad, causing the prices of healthy specimens of dairy qualities to be rather high. Importations from milk goat regions in Europe are made by American importers and breeders. The future of this line is full of promise for a new industry of bounded limits. The Swiss goat of Saanen is the chief species of central Europe. It comes from the valleys of the Saanen and the Simmen and is characterized by its color, which is wholly white, by the absence of horns and especially by its great production of milk. The Toggenburg, also a Swiss breed, and the Maltese, from the island of Malta, are noteworthy breeds of the milk goat. The Toggenburg is a medium brownish color, but the Maltese is white. The hair of these breeds is usually short and rough, the beard long and heavy. The race has delicate heads, slender necks, long bodies, straight backs, thin legs and large, tender, hairless udders in the ewes. The bucks readily reach three feet in height. With good food, production in some instances reaches six to eight quarts a day, but three to five quarts is more the rule. Goats are milked about six months and then are dried off. The production will run from 500 to 1,000 quarts of milk during a lactation period. One ewe in Europe is reported to have produced 3,000 quarts during a single year.
Kashmir Pashmina goats.
At one time the making of cashmere shawls or sweaters was a great industry in Cashmere. That old industry, however, has lost its glory and importance. These animals originally flourished in Cashmere and Tibet. The wool enables the goats to bear the severe cold of the mountainous climate of these regions, although only a pound to a pound and a half is sheared at a clip. These animals have a double coat, a covering of outer hair, long, fine, straight and stiff; and beneath this is the fine, soft and fleecy wool that has made the breed so famous. The goats are of medium size; they have rather large heads and pendent ears, and long spiral horns that curve obliquely backward.
Angora goats are natives of Asia Minor, and since their introduction have steadily grown in popularity. The bucks have long, flat, finely curved horns, but those of the ewes are smaller and simpler. In addition to their service in yielding a clip of valuable mohair, their flesh is more and more coming to be used for human food. It is often sold as mutton, and if the animals are properly fed and slaughtered while young,,the mutton is very good. Another use to which Angoras are put is for clearing land. They eat the bark of trees, various kinds of underbrush and weeds and soon kill out bushes. Many Angora enthusiasts claim they are worth a great deal for this purpose.
Mohair comes from the Angora goat. That of the finest quality is sheared from kids a year old. It gradually deteriorates until the sixth year, when it is of practically no value. The wool is abundant, thick, long, soft, shining, silky and slightly curled. The color is white. An average clip is three pounds. Mohair is extensively used in the manufacture of plush and certain kinds of dress goods. Sometimes the skins are tanned, either in natural color or dyed and used for rugs and robes.
Goats like to browse around in fence corners, thickets and on broken areas. Wherever they browse on brush they so completely destroy the rubbish that grass invariably springs up. This is because the undergrowth is destroyed and grass is given an opportunity to thrive. They take to grass also, but not so readily as to brushwood. When on pasture, the coarser grasses are preferred. In winter they will pick over corn stover, eat straw and grain. Sheaf oats, alfalfa, cowpea and clover hay are all excellent coarse food for them, and they eat these readily and with great relish. Milk goats require heavier feeding than those kept solely for mohair or as scavengers. They should be fed liberally and treated as other milk producers. The legume hays for roughage; kitchen refuse such as potatoes, carrots and turnips ; bran and linseed meal, make an ideal ration. Oats, barley, corn, and similar feeds may also be used to secure change and variety.
Give goats clean quarters. If they belong to the milk varieties, let them be treated and housed similar to dairy cows. This means a warm barn or shed, dry stalls, and an abundance of fresh air. Goats are particularly sensitive to moisture. They should have shelter in rainy weather. They should be provided with a rack in which their coarse fodder is placed, and given fresh bedding like other farm animals for cleanliness and comfort. Salt in rock form may be kept before them at all times. Their drinking water should be fresh and pure.
Angora goats come in a variety of grey, brown and white colors.
In summer it is expected that these animals will have grazing facilities as do other kinds of live stock. In winter a paddock or small lot for exercise is desirable. In either case substantial fences are needed. Goats are great climbers as well as great creepers. They go over and under things if the opportunity is offered. By nature they are climbers ; unless trained to do so, they will not jump. The fences should be high and of such construction as to prevent climbing.
Milk goats are milked two or three times daily. Regularity is as important with these animals as with cows. Gentleness and kindness at all times have their value. It is a good rule to wipe the teats and udder before drawing any milk. The udder is then stripped a few times from above, downward. The milking should not be done in the stall on account of odors that tend to contaminate its flavor.
Each milking should be weighed and a record of its weight kept for future reference and as an aid in determining the value of each individual.
As a rule goats are very prolific. From two to four kids are dropped at a time, depending on the breed. Angora goats breed once a year, but other goats breed very soon after kidding. Maturity is reached in from 15 to 18 months. If bred before this time, the offspring are neither strong, nor do they show sturdy development. Angoras are at their best at from two to six years, and are not worth much after that time. Milk goats may be kept longer, especially if they produce offspring of exceptional merit. The average life of these animals is about 12 years. Owing to the delicate nature of the kids, the breeding period should be timed so that the young may be dropped after the warm days have come.
Start with a few individuals at first and learn by experience. Don't make the mistake of getting inferior quality. A few good specimens will prove a great deal more profitable than double the number of poor or mongrel stock. When kids are four to five months old, they may be weaned. Watch the feet. When the toes grow out and turn up, they should be trimmed ‚ otherwise they become a nuisance to the animal, or they may get sore and cause much pain. On rocky land trimming is not always necessary. Footrot often results if goats are kept on land that is wet much of the time. In case of infection change to new pasture after treating with sulphate of copper or other antiseptic wash. While goats are subject to a variety of diseases, they are not so much so as sheep.
There is some truth in the statement that a goat running with sheep will keep off the dogs. But this means the protecting buck must be trained to fight the dogs. Being fighters naturally, their pugnacious disposition is easily developed ; and if so developed when dogs visit the flock, the buck will at once lead in the attack, and thus in many cases save the sheep. A few goats will stay with a flock of sheep, but when in considerable number they prefer to graze off to themselves, and the protection thus desired is not secured. Where protection is wanted one or two fighting bucks are greatly to be preferred to a dozen.
As pets for children the goat has long been popular. They are troublesome only when teased and annoyed. They show much intelligence and are easily trained. Children have no difficulty in controlling them when harnessed to carts, and driven. Common goats have been used mostly for these purposes in the distant past, but the Angora is equally satisfactory. Angoras are freer from the "goat odor" than common goats and their beauty makes them very desirable as pets.
In the "good old days'' they had to resort to various expedients in preparing the food for the table. Perhaps no phase of it is more interesting than the story of how they ground their corn and wheat.
In many families they had a grater. They perhaps called it a "gritter. " It was made of a piece of tin, most any size, that it was possible to get. They punched it full of holes, bent it with the rough side convex and nailed it to a piece of board, thus forming a sort of semi-cylinder. The corn on the cob was rubbed on this, like rubbing clothes on a washboard, and it was ground into meal which fell on the board and ran down into a wooden trough made for the purpose. This was a laborious process, but it was the best that many of them had.
The next step was what some have called the "hominy block'' It was arranged on the top of a stump or a block cut from a tree and set on end and hewn out or burned out so as to make it something like a large mortar. For a pestle they sometimes used a large, smooth stone weighing some fifteen or twenty pounds. This was very much like the plan the native people had of putting the corn in a hole in a rock and rubbing it with another. They sometimes made a sort of maul, perhaps three feet long and weighing ten or fifteen pounds. They even improved this and bent a sapling over, attached a piece of timber, six or more inches in diameter and six or eight feet long, in such a manner as to allow the timber to be brought down by pulling it. By this process, the labor was lessened.
The inventive mind, prodded on by necessity, devised another plan. If a sapling were not handy, they sometimes laid a pole twenty-five or thirty feet long across a fork and with the heavy end under the corner of the house in such a manner as to allow the spring of the pole to lift the weight.
Next comes the hand-mill, very much like those used in the Holy Land today, and to which Jesus referred when he said, "Two women shall be grinding at a mill, the one shall be taken and the other left." It was made of two stones, one of which was stationary and called the bed stone. A movable one above it was called the runner. A shaft was put thru the runner, one end terminating in the bed stone and the other in a hole in a piece of timber above. Thru this shaft, a pole perhaps ten feet long was put in such a manner as to make two handles against which two people could push. The corn was fed thru a hole in the runner and the meal fell out from under it at the edges. This was free for the neighborhood and every family did their own grinding.
Perhaps the next step was the horse mill, made very much the same way only larger, allowing the horse or oxen to go in a circle twenty feet or more in diameter. This was still improved by putting the horse, or team of horses, or yoke of oxen, to a separate "sweep" fastened to an upright beam which was the axle of a wheel fifteen or twenty feet in diameter. This large wheel carried a deer-skin or cow-hide belt working on a much smaller wheel on the axle of the runner. About that time they began to charge toll and the law said it should be one-tenth. They had not then worked out a system of weighing the grain and giving them their milling, but each had to wait until his own was ground. People went long distances and often had to wait a long time. This gave rise to the expression, "like going to mill," when you are expected to await your turn. It is said that when General Logan was a boy, he drove thirty miles to mill. He, of course, had to stay all night, but that night it rained. The belt got wet and stretched so that it fell. Some hungry dogs chewed part of it up so badly that they had to kill an ox, tan the hide and make part of a new belt. In this way, he was detained several days. My father, when just a lad, drove a yoke of oxen fully that far with a load of corn and wheat. Part of the wheat he sold at fifty cents a bushel.
The next step in this evolution was the water-mill, which was very much the same, but was run by water-power. If for no other reason, this kind of mill will be remembered threw out the ages on account of the popular poem, "Little Jerry, the Miller".
Near the close of pioneer days, the steam mill came into existence. Not until then was there a definite system worked out whereby people could exchange corn or wheat for meal or flour and get away without waiting for their own to be ground. Mills became more plentiful and people took smaller amounts to mill, often not more than three bushels of corn and three of wheat, and sometimes less than that. They spoke of this as a "turn of milling". Very little wheat was used for it was so hard to harvest and to thresh. Fifty bushels was considered a large crop of wheat. If it was bolted at all, it was thru a deer-skin full of small holes, punched with a red-hot wire. In few things have people changed more than in preparing "bread-stuff".
