Till-: D()MKs-i'i('ATi:i» OsTiticir ix Soith Akiuca. KU 



New Zealand. in all i>t' these places efforts, with varying success, 

 are being made to build up an ostrich industry, and in time their 

 featheis might become serious competitors with those of Cape Colony. 

 Up to the present exchanges of feathers have been secured with 

 growers in America and New Zealand. It is very desirable, if 

 South Afi-ica is to maintain its present supremacy in the ostrich feather 

 trade, that we should know e.xactly what is being done in other 

 countries. The Act recently passed prohil)iting the exportation of 

 ostriches and ostrich eggs is maiiily designed to prevent the best 

 birds from leaving the colony, and the success of the policy which 

 the Act represents depends upon the ability of .South Africa to 

 continue ttt produce better feathers than can be grown elsewhere. 

 It must be allowed that in the quality of its feathers South Africa 

 is at present many years ahead of other countries, but though the 

 bird is indigenous to Africa it does not follow that it may not succeed 

 as well elsewhere. 



The feathers obtained from New Zealand are greatly inferior to 

 those pioduced in Cape Colony. The samples from America show 

 considerable advance upon those from New Zealand, but, compared 

 with those of the Cape, are lacking in size, strength of tlue and density. 

 Both show evidence of having been grown under highly artificial con- 

 ditions, and it may reasonably be cjuestioned whether from an absence of 

 proper veld in other countries, with its variety of bush and shrubs, they 

 will ever produce as superior feathers as those grown in 8outh Africa. 

 Nevertheless the thousands of birds now farmed in America, where the 

 climate seems very favourable, and lucerne grows freely, would seem to 

 point in the opposite direction, and render it obligatory upon South 

 Africa that every endea\our should be put forth to foster the ostrich 

 to its utmost. 



The Great Need — Ax Experimental and Stud Ostrich Farm. 



The great need at present in South Africa is the establishment of 

 an experimental ostrich farm on a permanent basis, where investiga- 

 tions can be carried out as to the best management of birds so as to 

 produce the finest type of feathers, the best methods of rearing chicks 

 and their management, and also as to remedies against the many 

 diseases and parasites to which the bird is subject. Particularly is it 

 necessary that experiments in breeding superior bii-ds should be con- 

 ducted under proper conditions, so that the progeny can be distributed 

 among the farmers and thereby gradually raise the standard. Tt is 

 uu(]uestionabIy by the various methods of breeding that the greatest 

 improvements in ostriches will be made in the future, and much 

 of this is of such a nature as could scarcely be undertaken by the 

 private farmer. I desire to impress the fact that the ostrich indu.stry 

 is of such vast importance to Sf»uth Africa, that so many scientific 

 problems are inv(»hed therein, that everv assistance which science and 

 practice can afford should be given to its maintenance and further 

 development. 



