1883.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



151 



Francisco. The town has water rights for 

 1,1.50 acres, and is laid out in twenty acre 

 lots-all in the highest state of cultivation. 

 Here I left tlic rail and hired a carriaf,'e — a 

 four-spring gypsy-top wagou — which gives free 

 chance for observation and shade from the 

 sun. No rain need be guarded against, for 

 none will fall until nextOctober or Novi^mbcr. 

 The cold wind from the Pacilic Ocean is licre, 

 twenty miles inland, pleasant and exhilera- 

 ting, blows steadily from the west by tiorth 

 every day ; and now it tempers the heat of the 

 sun as we drive westward over a level plain of" 

 light soil well adapted to the growth of small 

 grains and the delight of alfalfa, tlie roots of 

 which will find water if there is any witliin 

 lifteeu or twenty feet in such soil. Water of 

 good quality is obtained in moderate quantity 

 at a depth of from four to twelve feet, and 

 flowing wells are obtained at a depth of sixty 

 feet. The farms are generally small, and the 

 division lines and roadsides are planted with 

 eucalypus and poplar and the beautiful Mon- 

 terey cypres and graceful pepper trees. 



As I drive toward the new unpainted build- 

 ings in view a half mile away I see sign boards 

 witli notice that all dogs found on these 

 premises will be shot. And this emphatic 

 notice is strictly enforced, much to the sur- 

 prise of confiding sight seeing people who 

 have not yet learned that the notice means 

 death to any and all dogs which may come 

 witliin range of the shot gun or pistol of the 

 guardians of the precious feathered bipeds. 

 Only a short time before a dog was shot at 

 the side of his bucolic master, who could not 

 comprehend the necessity of guarding the 

 breeding birds from the sight of any animal 

 of the dog kind. As I approacli the house I 

 see that it is one of the San Francisco " ready- 

 mades," built of red-wood. Ordered by tele- 

 graph from San Francisco, it was shipped by 

 rail and set up ready for occupancy within 

 four days from the giving of the order. It is 

 a unique and tasteful rectangular structure 

 one-story high; shingle roof with gables; 

 a porch along the entire front ; ornamental 

 brackets and cornice ; a passage-way six feet 

 wide through the centre ; two rooms on each 

 side, each twelve feet square ; and the whole 

 building set up on the ground cost .^400 ! One 

 is used for a reception-room, one for sleeping, 

 one for kitchen and one for the incubator 

 aud egg-room. On the work done in this 

 room depends the success of the ostrich farm. 



The Incubator. 



A broad shelf ou one side contains about 

 fifty ostrich eggs aud any number of eggs of 

 the brown leghorn chicken. The incubator 

 has been used for hatching these eggs prior to 

 ti jting the more valuable ostrich eggs to its 

 maternal care. These ostrich eggs are a 

 wonder to all who see them for the first time. 

 They are regularly elliptical inform, weighing 

 about three and one-half pounds, measuring 

 in circumference 1^x16 inches, and with hold- 

 ing capacity equal to a full quart measure. 

 The color is a creamy white aud the shell is 

 equally pitted all over and porus in appear- 

 ance. Sixteen eggs have been put in the in- 

 cubator up to the time of this visit, June 29, 

 and the remaining eggs, and what more may 

 come, will wait for the Halstead ostrich incu- 

 bator, which has made a favorable reputation 



iu Cape Colony in the specialty of hatching 

 ostrich eggs and which is daily expected. 



The sixteen eggs were placed in the incu- 

 bator on May 14th, l.")th and Kith, and tlieir 

 period of incubation has nearly passed, for the 

 chickens are moving in their shells ready for 

 advent in Calilbrnia life. One came as aoant 

 courier yesterday, and to-day is a beauty of its 

 kind. lie is covered with speckled brown 

 downy featliers except on tlie head and neck 

 and legs ; he is as wild, shy and active as tlic 

 young antelope fawn, and only a day old, is as 

 large as a full-grown lieghorn hen. Uneasy 

 and restless, in constant motion, and with 

 inquiring eyes, be no doubt waits impatiently 

 the companions who are to joiu him in his 

 leather-producing career. 



Preparatory to any nourishing food he had 

 placed before him when about twenty-four 

 hours old a tray of small gravel stones and 

 crushed sea shell ; subsequent to this tonic, 

 he had a handful of chopped alfalfa. This 

 lays the foundation for a meal of cracked corn 

 and water, and when this has been eaten the 

 bird is considered on the straight road to 

 distinction as the first ostrich hatched in 

 America. The bird will no doubt conduct 

 himself or herself as the case may be (for the 

 sex is not distinguishable for some mouths) in 

 accordance with the rules and regulations 

 prescribed and enforced here for the success- 

 ful promotion of the honor and profit properly 

 due the enterprising gentlemen who have in- 

 itiated this new industry. 



Paddock and Farm. 



Leaving the front door looking east I turned 

 to the south, and before me was an inclosure 

 of four acres in L form, made by a post and 

 board fence only four and a-half feet high_ 

 But this fence is made of three good sound 

 inch-thick, twelve inches wide redwood 

 boards, well nailed on. A kick from an irri- 

 tated ostrich would break an ordinary fence 

 board in splinters. These parallelograms 

 making the L are divided into twelve pad- 

 docks in which the stock of twenty-one 

 ostriches, eleven hens and ten cocks are 

 placed. Each paddock contains a pair of 

 birds, one having two hens and one cock. 

 The paddocks are bare and sandy, but sur- 

 rounding the breeding grounds |is an excellent 

 growth of alfalfa, turnips, cabbages, onions, 

 maize and beets, all of which have been plant- 

 ed and grown since March 25th, and are on 

 time for the voracious chickens which are ex- 

 pected to rally round their exemplary parents 

 in an all-summer campaign against the fifty- 

 four acres of green food provided for them. 



In close proximity to the paddocks is an ar- 

 tesian well 300 feet deep, which discharges 

 four feet above the surface 12,000 gallons of 

 water each hour — sufficient to irrigate in this 

 locality from two to three liundred acres of 

 land planted to ordinary crops and with llie 

 average rainfall. The entire farm is a mile 

 square, or 040 acres, and is a level plain. 

 A Successful Enterprise. 



It may be as well to remind you that these 

 are the ostriches the arrival of which in New 

 York last November attracted so much atten- 

 tion, and wliich Dr. Protheroe, of Buenos 

 Ayres, and Dr. C. .1. Sketchley, both former- 

 ly of the Transvaal, Africa, brought to this 

 country with the hope of forming a stock 



company to engage in the business of breed- 

 ing fowls and raising feathers. A company 

 was formed at once in San Francisco with a 

 paid paid-upcai)ital of $30,000, Drs. Proth- 

 eroe and Sketchley retaining an interest and 

 Dr. Sketchley giving the benefit of his 

 experience as superintendent of the farm for 

 the present. 



Tliis enterprise may be fairly pronounced a 

 succe.ss, for the company has more orders for 

 birds than it can promise to SU this season, 

 and at its own prices, which are SlOO to $120 

 for a healthy chick four months old. These 

 chickens will yield their first feathers when 

 eight months old, whicii picking should bring 

 at present market prices from 87 to f 10. The 

 next picking, eight months after the first, 

 should bring from $40 to $50, and in two 

 years the bird, if well cared for, is expected to 

 be in full [dumage and to yield annually $-200 

 worth of feathers. Ostriches breed when four 

 years old, and from a pair is expected an 

 average of fifty healthy chickens every year 

 for twenty years.- — William O. LeDuc, San 

 Diego, Cal, July 2f>., 1883. 



LOW GRADES AND THE CANNING 

 BUSINESS. 



It is no doubt a fact that the canning of 

 meats, which has been carried on so exten- 

 sively during some years past, has furnished 

 a market for a large proportion of the in- 

 ferior stock that has been raised. This busi- 

 ness has indirectly, then, encouraged the 

 production of low-grade meats, because it is 

 only the lower class of stock that is used for 

 canning purposes, this being bought at low 

 figures. The process of cooking and mincing, 

 salt and other seasoning being added, com- 

 bine to obliterate traces of the low quality, 

 though upon the taste of those who have 

 learned what flavor goes with the higher 

 classes of meat, no successful deception can 

 be practiced by any process of seasoning what- 

 ever. The insipid taste, always found in the 

 canned meats, is an exposure of it to those 

 who arc accustomed to eating meats of the 

 higher grades. 



It is the common belief that anything is 

 good enough for making soup. No mistake 

 could be greater than this. No soup is first- 

 class except it be made from the carcass of a 

 beast whose lean flesh is full of rich meat 

 juices. The inferior portions of a well-bred, 

 well-fattened beast will make better soup or a 

 better stew than the choicest cut from the 

 skinny carcas.ses generally bought for can- 

 ning, for even the neck of the superior beast 

 affords cuts having the peculiar flavor and 

 odor of high-class meat. No part of it can 

 escape this, while no portion of the low grade 

 can possess it. Yet the canning process 

 makes the market, as stated, for inferior cat- 

 tle, and in so far as it does this it, of coui-se, 

 encourages their production, and probably, in 

 a degree, helps to keep up the price of in- 

 ferior stock, directly an apparent benefit, but 

 indirectly a bar to improvement. The eye is 

 a guide when looking at a work of art, but the 

 senses of smell and taste are alone able to 

 make apparent the difference that exists be- 

 tween high-class and low-class me^it. Chem- 

 ists who prepare extract of beef, now kept by 

 druggists for making beef tea, and for prepa- 

 ration in other forms for use by the sick, are 



