COLLECTION: GOAT HANDBOOK
ORIGIN: UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
DATE INCLUDED: OCTOBER, 1993
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THE DOCUMENT LENGTH IS ABOUT 5 PRINTED PAGES NOT COUNTING IMAGES.

A SMALL-SCALE AGRICULTURE ALTERNATIVE

Cashmere Goats
United States Department of Agriculture

The world is beginning to give goats - nature's best herbicide
- more attention.  Leafy spurge - poisonous to some animals - is
causing even people who laughed about goats to take a more serious
look.  When some Nebraska goats were taken on a demonstration tour,
people could hardly believe the sight of goats walking through high
brome grass to select out spurge heads!

Now, this is pretty silly just on its own merits as a text, but I think there’s a certain amount of additional absurdity in the fact that a government agency feels compelled to put this thing out. After all, for just about every other occupation, hobby, or activity you might name, there are at the very least a few dozen websites pointing the way, and maybe even a “for Dummies” book, an “Idiot’s Guide to” and an “Even a Drooling Mouthbreather Like Yourself Can…” manual. But goat farming requires instructions from the fed? If I were a more hopelessly cynical sort, I might even suspect that this were just a kind of free advertising for some goat-breeders’ lobby. Oh wait, I am that hopelessly cynical.