TliE OSTKlCll 1-KAT111-:k I^"L)U^TkV. 277 



feathers going" to London are again sorted on reaching there — 

 tliis time according to the manufacturers' requirements, whicii 

 is a ver}- much tiner process. They are then catalogued and 

 placed on view for a fortnight, to enable prospective buyers to 

 estimate their approximate value, and are then again disposed 

 of by public atiction. 



The greatest bulk of feathers goes to Great Britain^ 

 France, and America, and a smaller portion to Austria, Ger- 

 manv, and Russia, etc. Of recent years several attempts have 

 been made to introduce feathers into China and Japan, but the 

 difficultv up to the present has been that the people of the East 

 verv seldom wear hats, and when they do, they are purely as a 

 protection against the weather, and not as an article of decora- 

 tion, as in the West. It is to be hoped, however, that with the 

 spread of European fashions, and the carrying out of schemes 

 recenth- evolved for the purpose of popularising the Ostrich. 

 feather, the desire for this beautiful article of decoration w'ill 

 be increased, and that the luarkets for Ostrich feathers will be 

 ver\- much extended in the future. 



r.vcVs- of the Ostrich Feather. — When one considers the 

 enormous variety of uses to which Ostrich feathers are put, it 

 is hard to conceive of such an industry becoming an absolute 

 failure, and although the market will always be subject to- 

 fluctuati<ins due to changes of fashion, it is difficult to imagine 

 the demand for Ostrich feathers dying out altogether. 



'')t course, the first and principal use of the Ostrich feather 

 is as an article of decoration on ladies' hats ; for this purpose 

 the ver} best feathers are used, particularly when the feather 

 is used in its undressed or natural state. These feathers fetch 

 the highest prices, and consequently, when ladies are wearing 

 the greatest number of feathers on their hats the Ostrich farmer 

 is procuring the greatest profits. Next comes the manufacttire 

 of Ostrich feather fans. For this purpose good feathers of 

 several dififerent kinds are used. 



Xext is the manufacture of Ostrich feather boas. In the 

 making of these the flue or soft portion of the feather only is 

 used, and for this reason damaged and inferior feathers are 

 largelv used for the pttrpose. 



The flue of the most inferior feathers is tised for padding 

 clothes and quilts for use in cold cotmtries. As will easily be 

 under-tood from the foregoing, where the uses of the Ostrich 

 feather^ are so extremelv varied, it is qtiite possible that when 

 one }jarticular class of feather is down in price, another line 

 may be booming, and. as previously pointed out, it is very un- 

 likelv that the demand for Ostrich feathers will ever completely 

 die out. 



In conclusion, I would like to point out the enormous strides 

 made by the Ostrich industry since Ostriches were first domesti- 

 cated in .^outh Africa, and the enormous benefit derived from 

 the industrv in South Africa. In t86; there were 80 domesti- 



