242 OSTRICH-FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



thing", but he has to unlearn all he has learned. Men 

 that have had a training at English farming seem to be 

 the last to take in the total difference of the surrounding 

 circumstances, and to imagine that it is ignorance and 

 prejudice that makes old colonists keep mainly to the 

 old primitive grooves. And not till their capital is 

 gone, and they have become embittered by constant 

 failures, do they realise the fact that these men are 

 as shrewd, far-seeing, and enterprising as any in 

 England ; but that experience has taught them that all 

 improved methods must come very gradually, and to be 

 successful must only advance at the same pace as the 

 available labour becomes gradually educated up, and 

 other surrounding circumstances of markets and roads 

 advance. 



The spirit that goes a long way to make the differ- 

 ence between the young man that will make a successful 

 colonist and one that will not, is the habit of observa- 

 tion. That constant quick observation that never rests, 

 that notices every peculiarity in people and things : the 

 habit that would compel him, if he saw a man laying a 

 drain, to find out how deep it was, how the tiles were 

 laid, and the reasons why ; or, if he passed some men 

 building a wall, would notice how the bricks were laid, 

 how the mortar was mixed, and all about it. In fact, 

 he must have the very opposite spirit to that of a 



