778 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by localizing the work successively in limited muscular groups, 

 effect very intense muscular efforts without any fear as to their 

 reaction upon the organism or upon the circulation of the blood. 

 The floor exercises of the Swedish gymnastics exactly fulfill the 

 conditions needed to obtain suppleness of the joints ; similar exer- 

 cises, according to the French method, would be well fitted for 

 the object of preserving or increasing the local muscular develop- 

 ment. Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Re- 

 vue Scientifique. 



LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



r I ^HERE is an air of delightful unrestraint about Mrs. Martin's 

 -*- story of her Home Life on an Ostrich Farm.* She addresses 

 her reader from her book as she would gossip to a confidential 

 friend about her adventures, and describes them all with photo- 

 graphic vividness. We receive, as if to the very life, her first 

 impressions of Cape Town, the Veldt, the Karroo district m which 

 her home was situated ; the farm itself, with its peculiar vegeta- 

 tion, birds, beasts, and reptiles ; her own and her husband's trouble 

 at not being able to realize the house of Algerian architecture 

 which they had dreamed of ; the long drought and the flood, in- 

 doors as well as out, by which it was so rudely broken ; and the 

 incidents, the humors and pleasures, mishaps and sorrows, of 

 ostrich-raising. 



Mr. and Mrs. Martin having removed to South Africa to go 

 into the ostrich-raising business, settled on a tract of twelve thou- 

 sand acres in a long valley so hedged in by steep mountains that 

 little inclosure was necessary. It was in the part of the Karroo 

 called the Zwart Ruggens, or black, rugged country, from the 

 appearance it presents in the long droughts, when the vegetation 

 turns to a forbidding black and is seemingly all dried up. But 

 the sticks, when broken, are found all green and succulent inside, 

 and full of a nourishing saline juice ; and thus, even in long 

 droughts, which sometimes last more than a year, this country is 

 able to support stock in a most marvelous manner. 



The little karroo plant, from which the district takes its name, 

 is one of the best kinds of bush for ostriches as well as for sheep 

 and goats. It grows in small compact, round tufts not more than 

 seven or eight inches high, and, though very valuable to farmers, 

 is unpretending in appearance, having tiny, narrow leaves, and a 

 little, round, bright-yellow flower, "exactly resembling the center 

 of an English daisy after its oracle has been consulted and its 



* Home Life on an Ostrich Farm. By Annie Martin. New York : D. Applcton & 

 Co. Tp. 283. 



