KILLING BRUSH.
If one wishes to clear brush land, he should confine the goats to a comparatively small tract. The goats kill the shrubs by eating the leaves and by peeling the bark from the branches and trunks of the trees. The brush thus deprived of lungs, soon dies and the roots rot. As fast as the leaves grow they must be consumed, so it is well to allow the goats to eat most of the leaves off of a limited tract, and then in order to give the goats plenty of feed, they should be moved to another field. As soon as the leaves on the first tract have regrown the goats should be again confined to this land. In this way the leaves are continually destroyed. This process can be continued as fast as the leaves regrow. By this method it is estimated that a bunch of one hundred to one hundred and fifty goats will clear forty acres of thick brush in about two years. In countries where the grass grows as the brush dies, goats will eat some of this grass, but they prefer the browse.
On some of the older goat ranches, where the Angora has been raised exclusively for the mohair and mutton, it has become quite a problem to prevent the goats from killing out the brush. The goats have done well where other kinds of livestock would have starved, but as soon as the brush is killed the land produces almost nothing, and even the goats cannot make a living. To prevent as far as possible their killing the brush the flocks are moved frequently from one range to another, so that the shrubs have a chance to recuperate between visits. In this way brush can be kept almost indefinitely for the goats. On some of the western ranges, where cattle and sheep have, by continual cropping, killed much of the grass, good browse remains. These ranges would have to be abandoned if it were not for the goat. Goats do not in any way interfere with the pasturage of cattle or other livestock. Cattle feed contentedly on the same range with the goats, and this fact has led many southern cattle men to invest in goats. The goats are herded on the brushy lands, and the cattle range over the same territory and eat the grass. Horses have a great fondness for goats.