The Poor and the Land 



oranges, lucerne, tobacco, potatoes, apricots 

 and plums, apples, quinces and pears. We 

 have reaped as much as forty bags of wheat 

 to the morgen under water. We find that 

 mealies, wheat and lucerne make a good rotation. 

 Then we have an excellent soil renovator in the 

 Kafir bean of the Kalahari Desert, a variety 

 of cow-pea, which saves us buying expensive 

 nitrogenous manure. We are just starting an 

 ostrich industry. We believe that we possess 

 a finer ostrich country than Oudtshoorn. Our 

 erf -holders already own 150 ostriches and 36 

 young chicks, and so far we have had no losses. 

 The birds seem to thrive in the warm, dry 

 climate of this back country." 







The imperative need of Kakamas is a rail- 

 way. For want of a market all real progress is 

 paralysed, the future outlook gloomy. An erf 

 of six morgen under water is certainly ample for 

 an industrious settler, but not for his numerous 

 family of young men and maidens. And what 

 is their outlook ? Cut off from the rest of 

 civilisation, their character is warped and their 

 development arrested, their ambition stunted. 

 You can never hope to make one-half of 

 these men farmers, but you may make them 



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