One 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.