California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



Ostrich Farming in Africa. 



M-^ ITHIN the last dozen years an iu- 

 ''-^y/ dustry has sprimg tip in Africa 

 that ought to claim the attention 

 of the jjeople along the PaeiUe 

 l.i-^ slope of the United States. It is 

 the raising and care of ostriches for 

 their feathers. There are u^uy half- 

 desert like stretches of country here just 

 suited to the habits of the ostrich, and 

 that might probably be put to good use 

 as ostrich pastures, could a ship cargo of 

 those birds be brought here and bred 

 from for that purpose. The article that 

 we select from an exchange almost makes 

 us wish that we owned a fine flock of 

 them, and owned a combined bee and 

 ostrich farm in San Diego county on 

 which to rear them: 



Within the last seven or eight j'ears 

 an industry has sprung up at the Cape 

 of Good Hope, which, on account of its 

 novelty and the important results it pro- 

 duces, is worthy of notice. It is that of 

 keeping ostriches in a state of semi-do- 

 mestication for the sake of their feathers, 

 which have latterly become more and 

 more scarce and consequently more val- 

 uable. From the Cape the business of 

 ostrich farming has been introduced in 

 South America, where, as we showed in 

 this journal in 1872, it is carried on with 

 more or less success. But the best 

 feathers are still those produced in the 

 south of Africa. 



Like many other important undertak- 

 ings, ostrich farming, if not actually the 

 the result of an accidental discovery, re- 

 ceived a great impetus from an appar- 

 ently trilling circumstance. A few years 

 ago one of the native traders in ostrich 

 feathers and eggs, having more eggs than 

 he could conveniently carry, left four or 

 five of them in a cupboard adjoining a 

 bakehotise in some Algerian village. On 

 his return about two months afterwards, 

 he was surprised to find the broken 

 shells of his ostrich eggs and a corres- 

 ponding number of young ostrich chicks. 

 The birds were, of course, dead from 

 want of attention; but the fact was un- 

 deniable that the fresh eggs of two 

 months ago, had, under the influence of 

 a high temperature, actually produced 

 fully developed chickens. The circum- 

 stances came to the knowledge of an of- 

 ficer in the French army, M. Crepu, ^ho 

 immediately perceived the practical re- 

 sults that might ensue from a careful 

 following up of the hint thus strangely 

 given. He set to work to devise artifi- 

 cial incubators for the purpose of hatch- 

 ing ostrich eggs, while at the same time 

 he procured some pairs of adult birds, 

 with a view to rearing them in a state of 

 semi-domestication. 



It is needless here to enter into partic- 

 ulai-s of the difficulties M. Crepu had to 

 encounter. Suffice it to say that, after 

 many disappointments, he had the satis- 

 faction of finding a Uve ostrich chick ac- 

 tually, hatched in his apparatus, and 

 thus his assiduous eftbrts were cro-n'ned 

 with triumph. About tifty-three or fifty- 

 four days is the full term of incubation, 

 which may be slightly accelerated or re- 

 tarded by a trifling change in the heat to 

 which the eggs are subjected, although 

 the smallest excess or want of heat be- 

 yond a certain limited range is fatal. 

 But to such perfection have artificial in- 

 cubators now been brought that the 

 whole "sitting" of eggs may be hatched 



\ Tith more certainty than if left to the 



I natural care of the parents. 



I The baby chick, when it makes its de- 

 but, is about the size of a common fowl. 



and begins to pick up food at once. The 

 nature of the food suitable for both the 

 brood and the adults was a principal dif- 

 ficulty in the first attempts at the artifi- 

 cial breeding of the ostrich; but a care- 

 ful study of the habits of the birds in a 

 wild state has resulted in the discovery 

 of the best kind of diet suited for the 

 welfare of their domesticated brethren. 

 The principal food given to the young 

 birds is lucerne and thistles and tender 

 herbs and gi'asses indigenous to the 

 country. Old birds are fed on more ma- 

 tured shrubs and plants, the leaves of 

 which they strip off with their beaks. 

 They are also fed on Indian corn, known 

 at the Cape as "mealies." 



It will be interesting to note that when 

 the full number of eggs has been laid, 

 the old birds invariably place one or two 

 of them outside the nest — the nest con- 

 sisting naturally of a hollow scooped 

 out of the sand bj- the action of the legs 

 and wings of the birds. It has been 

 found that these eggs are reserved as 

 food for the chicks, which, in a natural 

 state, are often reared miles away from 

 a blade of grass or other food. As soon 

 as the chicks emerge from the shell, the 

 parent ostrich breaks one of these eggs 

 and the yolk is eagerly eaten up by the 

 young ones. They are, therefore, both 

 herbivorous and carnivorous; but it is 

 not necessary to gratify their appetite 

 for flesh, as they thrive excellently on 

 the herbs above mentioned. Of course 

 where food is supplied in abundance this 

 precaution on the part of the parent 

 bird of providing meat for their ofl'- 

 spring is not necessary, and each egg so 

 left is therefore wasted. Considerable 

 loss also occurs in the number of ad- 

 dled eggs, when they are left to be 

 hatched by the parents. It is said that 

 the ostrich is able to discover when an 

 egg becomes addled, and that it immedi- 

 ately ejects it from the nest; thus show- 

 ing an amount of wisdom which has 

 hardly been attributed to a bird which is 

 popularly supposed to thrust its head 

 into a bush when being hunted, in the 

 vain hope that as it cannot see, it can- 

 not be seen by its pursuer. 



These observations were first made in 

 Algeria, but it is at the Cape that they 

 have been turned to practical account, 

 and a very perfect system of ostrich- 

 farminor has been established there. Dif- 

 ferent practices prevail at different estab- 

 lishments. The birds are allowed occa- 

 sionally to sit; but the success which has 

 attended the use of artificial contrivances 

 is so great that fewer losses occur by this 

 means than under natural circumstances, 

 and the use of incubators is becoming 

 veiy general. The chicks produced are 

 so healthy as to show that they do nfft 

 suffer from this mode of treatment. 



The arrangement of ostrich farms is 

 similar in all cases. The deskkmta are 

 plenty of space, suitable soil — that is 

 sand and pasture with facilities for grow- 

 ing the proper food — conveniences for 

 shelter and water. A well conducted 

 farm would require jierhaps £3,000 cap- 

 ital to begin in a small way. The indus- 

 try at the Cape is barely eight years old, 

 and much has to be learned b}» a begin- 

 ner. Loss and disappointment are fre- 

 quently experienced at first; but the 

 occupation is considered a very profita- 

 ble one, and is certainly healthy and 

 agreeable. Yet nowhere are patience, sa- 

 gacity and perseverance more necessary 

 thanfin conducting a good ostrich farm. 



A healthy bird of a week old is worth 

 £10; at three mouths it will be worth 

 £15, and at six months £30 and more. 

 Feathers may be plucked from the os- 

 trich when a year old, and each year's 

 crop will be worth about £7 per bird. At 

 five years the breeder begins to pair his 



birds, and each pair will yield from 

 eighteen to twenty-fiMir eggs in a season. 

 It is necessary to keep the adult birds in 

 separate paddocks, which are generally 

 surrounded by wire fencing. The os- 

 trich is liable to sudden fits of jealousy. 

 In such a case frequent quarrels would 

 ensue if the birds were all together in 

 one indosure, with the result, if not of 

 black eyes, at least of damaged feathers, 

 and perhaps broken legs and even death 

 to one of the combatants. The blow 

 from the leg of the ostrich has been 

 comj)Uted to be fully equal to the force 

 developed by the kick of a colt seven 

 mouths old. But whatever be the exact 

 force produced, it is very severe, suffi- 

 ciently so to break a man's leg. 



The ostrich, however, both male and 

 female, is quite an exemplary parent, 

 notwithstanding the popular rumor that, 

 like the crocodile, it leaves its eggs in 

 the sand to be hatched simply by the ac- 

 tion of solar heat. Father and mother 

 take it in turn to sit on the eggs, and 

 when the ostrich takes his female com- 

 panions out for their evening promenade 

 in the desert, one of them aiways re- 

 mains by the nest. This fact is suffi- 

 cient to induce many breeders to leave 

 the eggs to be hatched in the natural 

 way, and merely to devote their energies 

 to the rearing of the young birds and 

 the collection of the feathers. 



These are operations that require very 

 great care. Regular supplies of food — 

 about two pounds a day to each adult — 

 are necessary; shelter must be provided 

 for the night and to shield the birds from 

 the violent storms which frequently burst 

 over the southern part of Africa; and 

 there must be supplies of sand and peb- 

 bles, which the birds swallow as aids to 

 the digestion. Pepsine is unknown 

 among these birds of the desert, and 

 they introduce a quantity of hard sub- 

 stances into the gizzard to assist them in 

 grinding up theit food, just as the dys- 

 peptic featherless biped takes his morn- 

 ing bitters to help the secretion of the 

 gastric juices. It is very amusing to 

 watch the flock of young birds as the at- 

 tendant enters to scatter their breakfast. 

 The moment he appears with his load 

 of " green meat," the youngsters of the 

 ostrich family trot up to the entrance 

 and caper and dance about in the most 

 grotesque manner, and devour their food 

 with evident relish. They are generally 

 tame and to a certain extent tractable, 

 but as they grow old they sometimes 

 evince a sourness of temper which is 

 anything but encouraging to the forma- 

 tion of a near acquaintance with them. 



As the feathers are picked they are 

 sorted according to their quality and pu- 

 rity of color. The pure whites from the 

 wings are called "bloods," the next 

 quality " prime whites, " "firsts," "sec- 

 onds," and so on. The tail feathers are 

 not so valuable, and the more irregular 

 the markings of the colored varieties the 

 less valuable they are. "Bloods" will 

 fetch from forty to fifty pounds sterling 

 per pound weight in the wholesale mar- 

 ket, and from this price they range as 

 low as five shillings per pound. 



The quality of the feathers produced 

 by tame ostriches is fully equal to the 

 best collected from wild birds, while the 

 general average is much higher. Not- 

 withstanding increasing yield, prices are 

 rising instead of falling: indeed, good 

 ostrich feathers are now thrice as dear 

 as they were fifteen years ago. But it 

 is more than probable that as the produc- 

 tion increases the price will eventually 

 fall. Kven with reduced prices the prof- 

 its would be sufficiently large to render 

 ostrich farming a very profitable under- 

 taking; and as' each year !, will increase 

 the experience 'of breeders, the difficul- 



ties will be gradually diminished and 

 losses more easily avoided. As it is, 

 this strange iuduslrj' — the domestication 

 of the wild birds of the desert, once re- 

 garded as types of liberty and intracta- 

 bility — is at the same time one of the 

 most interesting and most profitable of 

 the African trader. 



A Colony or Osteiches.— Slontgomery 

 Queen has purchased 100 African os- 

 triches, and is about colonizing them ou 

 his place near Haywards, a small town 

 fifteen miles from San Francisco. It is 

 Mr. Queen's intention to raise ostriches 

 solely for their plumage, each bird yield- 

 ing over $200 worth of feathers yearly. 

 He has invested $100,000 in the enter- 

 prise. — Denver Xews. 



Undeveloped Fruits of America. 



m — 



FEW wild fruits may be mentioned 

 which manifestly have great capa- 

 bilities, that may or may not be 

 develojied in the future. The 

 leading instances, in my mind, are 

 the Persimmon and the Papaw; not the 

 true Papaw, of course, which we have in 

 Florida, but the Asia Minor, or Western 

 Papaw so called. Both Persimmons and 

 Papaws are freely offering from spontan- 

 eous seedlings, incipient choicer varieties 

 to be selected from both fruit when only 

 a few years old, thereby accelerating the 

 fixation of selected varieties into races; 

 and both give fruits of types wholly dis- 

 tinct from any others we possess of tem- 

 perate climates. He that has not tasti d 

 Kaki has no conception of the capabili- 

 ties of the Diospyrus genius. The Cus- 

 tard Apples of the West Indies give some 

 idea of what might be made of our Pa- 

 paw when ameliorated by cultivation 

 and close selection for several genera- 

 tions. I have understood that one of 

 the veteran pomologists of the country. 

 Dr. Kirtland, of Ohio, a good while ago 

 initiated a course of experiments upon 

 the Papaw in this regard; it would be 

 well to know with what success, and if 

 the breeding and selection have been 

 continued through successive genera- 

 tions. 



Our American Plums have for many 

 years been in some sort of cultivation 

 and have improved upon the wild forms; 

 but I suppose they have not been sys- 

 tematically attended to. Their exterior 

 liability to black knot and other attacks 

 renders them, for the present, unsuccess- 

 ful. 



Finally, if pomology includes nuts, 

 there is a promising field uncultivated. 

 Our wild chestnuts are sweeter than 

 those of the Old World; it would be well 

 to try whether races might not be devel- 

 oped with the nuts as large as marrons 

 or Spanish chestnuts, and without dimi- 

 nution of flavor. If we were not too 

 easUy satisfied with a mere choice be- 

 tween spontaneous hickory nuts, we 

 might have much better and thinner- 

 shelled ones. Varying as they do, exces- 

 sively in the thickness of the shell and 

 the size and flavor of the kernal, they 

 are inviting your attention, and promis- 

 ing to reward your care. The Peccan is 

 waiting to have the bitter matter between 

 the kernel bred out; the butternuts and 

 black walnuts to have their excess of oil 

 turned into farinaceous and sugary mat- 

 ter, and their shells thinned and smoth- 

 ered by continued good breeding; when 

 they will much sui-pass the European 

 walnut.- -Prof. Asa Gray. 



