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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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