ne can learn very little about breeding the Angora goat from the Turk. As we know from Tchikacheff's work, which was published over fifty years ago, cold winters often killed many of the Angoras in Asia Minor, and the Turk then imported from more favored districts common bucks or does to breed to the Angora. This was before the great demand for mohair, occasioned by the increase in manufacturing plants at Bradford, England, caused the Turkish mohair raisers to resort to all manner of means to increase the supply of raw material.
To-day the Turk is treading in the paths of his forefathers. What was good enough for them, certainly ought to be good enough for him, so he reasons. He eats with his fingers, cooks on a brazier, sits on the floor, eats, drinks, sleeps and works all in the same room, and keeps his wives in seclusion.
When he comes to breeding the Angora he leaves that to his servants, if he be wealthy enough to have any. Most of the breeders cannot read or write. They have never traveled. They have no ambition, and they know nothing of the principles of selective breeding. As a natural consequence the Angora goat of to-day has not improved, nor is he likely to improve under Turkish management. One large breeder who supplied bucks to some tributary country, said that he thought that it was a shame to castrate a buck, no matter how bad he might be. The Turk separates the bucks from the does at breeding season, as Asia Minor has cold weather late in the spring, and the danger of losing kids, if they come too early, is great. When the bucks are turned with the flock they are allowed to run until the next breeding season, and all of the bucks, regardless of quality or quantity, are allowed to run with the does.
When the first few Angoras arrived in America the natural procedure was to cross them upon the common short-haired goat of this country. It was a new industry, and many wanted to try the Angora. Very slowly the Angora, or the cross-bred animals were scattered over the United States. Stories were told of the wonderful things for which the mohair was used, and some supposedly reliable authorities quoted mohair at $8.00 a pound, as has been stated. Companies were started, and of course the supply of good Angoras, that is, goats which would shear about four pounds of mohair (worth at that time about seventy-five cents or a dollar a pound), was limited. Men bought any goat which had a trace of Angora blood in him as a thoroughbred Angora. A few years, however, demonstrated the fact that a common goat, with a little admixture of Angora blood, did not produce either the quality or the quantity of fleece wanted. Only a few of the more persistent breeders continued the experiment and their investigations. They sent and went to the home of the Angora, and brought more of the original animals to America. It took the American breeders about thirty years to find out just what the Angora goat was and how he should be handled. During that thirty years large flocks of common goats, which had been crossed with the Angora, and which might be properly termed "grade flocks," had been formed. Only a few thoroughbred flocks, that is, flocks of the original Angora, as he came from Turkey, were in existence.
CROSSING WITH THE COMMON SHORT HAIRED GOAT.
By experience we have learned that the common short coarse haired goat can be crossed with the Angora goat, and that after sufficient crosses have been made, the cross-bred Angora so nearly resembles the thoroughbred that for all practical purposes he is an Angora. We have also learned that certain kinds of common goats respond rapidly to the infusion of Angora blood, and that others retain certain peculiarities of the common goat for generations. The Angora will not cross with sheep. For instance, a common goat with a long mane on the back, or tuft of long hair behind the foreleg, or on the flank or the hip, will continue to perpetuate this long coarse hair on the offspring for generations, even though the best of Angora blood be infused. The color of the common goat is of some importance. A brown or reddish brown goat retains the reddish cast at the base of the mohair much longer than one of a bluish or bluish black color. It is equally true that a pure white mother may drop a colored kid occasionally. In Constantinople the mohair is graded into parcels containing red kemp, black kemp, etc. There it is the kemp which retains the color. As has been stated, there is also a breed of brown Angora goats, or at least mohair-producing goats, in Koniah in Asia Minor. Presuming, then, that one has a suitable common doe and a good Angora buck as a basis, the following may be deduced as relative changes in the different crosses:
PASHA V—A True Breeder.