Evening star., 1924-01-06

ION lack the coZy chaletS, the
snow-crowned mountains and
the robust Alpine climbers
and singers that are as infallible as
euideposts in introducing the trav-
eter to the heart of Switzerland, but
The neighborhood of the National
Capital boasts one typically Swiss
earmark-it is the Beltsville milch
goat herd owned and operated by
Your Uncle Samuel and one OF the
best Tom Thumb dairy projects Of it's
Kind in the country
Toggenburg and Saaneu milch
soats-the miniature cows of the
Alps mountain sections-predomina
ia the government herd at Beltsville,
which is maintained for experimental
purposes.
Washington has benefited markedly
rs result of Uncle Sans entrance
into the goat-raising business some
sixteen Years ago, for much of the
nutritious and easily digestibIe
goats milk produced at the national
farm has been used in cooperative
research at the diet kitchen and George
town University Hospital for the treat
ment of puny infants and invalids
suffering from malnutrition. Medical
miracles have been worked where the
goats milk has been added to. the
dietary of persons, both young and
old. who were suffering from di-
sestive disorders.
When mention is made of an
American goat, most of US imme-
diately visualize in our minds eye a
typical tin-can alley goat of the
stubby-tailed. strengthened variety,
or else we recall to mind that
harbinger of trouble to come-the
lodge" or fraternity goat which both
the just and unjust are required to
ride when they join one of these
secret societies.
The back alley or brush goat is
related to the delicate and cultured
milch goat in about the same degree
that n perambulator belongs in the
ZR family of mammoth dirigibles.
The plutocratic milking goat is the
exact antithesis of the ordinary tin
can goat. The blueblooded goats are
disciples of sanitation. They will eat
nothing but clean and pure food.
They require sanitary stables and
shaggy overcoats as spotless and i'm
r1acuiate as those of the most par
ticular "tabbies'' of the feline world.
Tho alley goat is everything that the
pure bred milch goat is not. The
only resemblance between these two
specimens of the live stock world is
that both are called goats and have
legs. horns and hair.
* = = 4
TT is well worth the trip to travel
out to the Beltsville experimental
farm on the Baltimore pike, sixteen
miles from the White House, to care
fully inspect one of the most remark
able goat farming projects in all
America. You may go to the farm
inclined to ridicule and be suspicious
Of all that you have heard about the
curative properties Of goats milk
You will return to Washington con-
vinced that the mich goat is a sani-
tary, provident and thrifty little
specimen Of animal life which de-
serves a more prominent place than
1t now is accorded in the American
live stock world.
Tho government goat farm features
p. herd of forty grade and pure bred
TOggcnburg and Saanen mich goats
of all sizes and ages. Ladies who see |
them for the first time always call
the kids "the cutest little bundles of
fuzzy hair that they have ever seen
anNw here. Mich does are very ma
teTnal. twins and triplets being COM
monpiace in the we'll bred herd |
These Youngsters are as playful and |
mischievous as baby bulldogs. They :
frolic. roll and tumble over the
Heltsville greensward for all the |
world like a colony of contented
children
The average milch doe weighs be-
tween 10 and 115 pounds, yet |
despite her diminutive size, she pro-
duces from seven to ten times her
weight in nutritious milk each year. |
The average milch doe in the Belts
vile herd produces from 3.5 to 5 !
quarts of milk daily during the peak
production of her nine months an
nI.al milking period. The best doe in
the herd has a record production of
1.2S1 pounds of milk and sixty-five
pounds of. butterfat for one lactation
period while the output of the entire
nerd of twenty -four milch does is
well over the 900-pound milk produc-
Iion mark per animal
Under present conditions it costs
about 10 cents day to feed the lili-
putian cows their regular rations of
alfalfa and clover hay and their grain
allowances of cracked corn, oats,
bran and oil meal. The average doe
eats about three to three and a half