Goat Milk

A nanny goat's baggy profile decorated one newspaper advertisement last week, and a billy goat's shaggy profile another during the same week. The billy goat invited attention to the versatility of the Seaboard National Bank, whose officers constantly dealt with matters as far away and, as far separated as Oregon and Texas, where goats abound. The nanny goat's business was more intimate. She "was pertly stating in type that a concern across the continent from the billy's bank was selling canned goat milk "for babies, delicate children and invalids . . . who cannot assimilate cows' milk." Her company was Meyenberg Laboratories Inc., and its home Salinas, Calif.

The nanny flicked her beard at a paragraph: "Goat milk is recognized by medical authorities as the ideal food for babies, or adults with weakened digestive powers. The American Medical Journal says 'Goats' milk is the purest, most healthful and complete human food known.' Alpure is 100% goats' milk, with nothing added. Evaporation under sanitary conditions retains all nutritive elements."

No longer need families tether goats in backyards. No longer need they endure the caprice stench.

Yet many a family will retain its comical pet, at once entertainer of children and purveyor to their thirsts. A healthy common nanny can produce 4 Ibs. of milk a day, or about 1,500 Ibs. a year. If she is a well-bred milker the year's tally may be around 2,200 Ibs.

Of course a cow produces far more milk than that. A good one will give bout 25,000 Ibs. a year and feel proud. Yet Segis Pietertje Prospect, property of Carnation Stock Farm at Oconomowoc, Wis., might well boo at such normalcy. She has filled the pails with 37,381.4 Ibs. of milk in a single year--the world's record. She is a Holstein.

However, let nanny goats feel no humility. They give each year 15 times their weights in milk, whereas cows niggardly produce only six times their weights.