60 AGRIOCULTURAL REPORT.

CONSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTIOS AND ADAPTEDNESS TO OUR CLIMATE.

These goats appear to be remarkably well adapted to our climate, show no evidence of suffering, and do not pant like sheep during the warm weather of summer, when the thermometer often rises to 920 F. In winter, when the thermometer sometimes sinks to zero, their woolly covering protects them from the cold, which they endure fully as well as sheep. In the lower country of Carolina, during recent severe winters, we ascertained that many of the common goats(as far as we could learn, one-half of the whole stock) perished from cold; the Asiatic goats, however, did not appear to suffer the least incon- venience. Kids were dropped in a snow bank, at Mr. Peters' farm, in February, and sustained no injury. Three of these goats were kept during winter and summer near Utica, in Central New York, and three others, with their descendants, have remained near Har- per's Ferry, Virginia, since the autumn of 1854; all of them are doing well, and have suffered no inconvenience either in winter or summer. This hardy disposition is imparted to the different grades, the half and three-quarter bloods, produced by an intermixture with the common goat. They are all healthy. No disease has appeared among them, and there has not been a single sick goat or any death by disease among those originally imported, or in any of their de- scendants, during the eight years since their introduction.

The oldest imported female is at least ten, probably eleven, years old— produces a kid every year, and now has at her side a very fine female, dropped on the 10th of March last. She is in fine order, and looks as though she would breed for several years. The females furnish an abundant supply of milk, and are excellent mothers, never losing their kids, which are strong when dropped, and able to suck in a few moments, the mother remaining over and about them for forty-eight hours, and afterwards always keeping a careful watch. The half-breed ewes inherit from the Davis goats this peculiar trait of character, being the very reverse of the common goats in this particular, the latter, especially when bred in large herds, care little for their young, which are often left to die for want of nourishment when a few hours old.

INCREASE.

This has been less than was at first anticipated. The fact of the common goat having two, and, sometimes, three young at a birth, and often two broods in a year, led many persons to the conclusion that this new variety of goat would be equally prolific. In this, expe- rience has now undeceived us. The animal produces young but once in a year, and only one kid at a birth. Mr. Peters received from Dr. Davis, in December, 1856, eight females and two males—three of the females having been imported. There were in this number

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