CHAPTER III. 



SOUTH AFRICA IN A FARMING LIGHT. 



With a new industry like Ostrich- farming it is liigiily 

 essential to bear in mind the past history of the country 

 in regard to its stock-carrying capabilities, and, if pos- 

 sible, so to manage things as to avoid all the ills that 

 have befallen the other great industry of wool-growing. 



The great body of the Cape Colon}^ consists of great 

 plains of Karoo country, composed of exceedingly fertile 

 soil covered with alkaline bushes, with a scant and 

 uncertain rainfoll, in which cultivation is impossible 

 without irrigation. The rainfall gradually gets less and 

 less to the north-west, until in Namaqua Land we have 

 a rainless country. The Karoo country is exceedingly 

 good for sheep-walks, the sheep keeping in better health, 

 increasing more rapidly, and growing larger than in 

 other parts, and all other kinds of stock thrive better 

 than in the grass country. But it is occasionally subject 

 to such terrible droughts that heavy losses in stock 

 occur. 



On the coast, and extending on an average about 

 thirty miles inland, is a heavy, sour grass country, on 



