The Ostrich 155 



cessful of these persons being Mr. Edwin Cawston, who went to South 

 Africa and returned with forty-four selected birds. These were later divided, 

 some going to South Pasadena, Cal., where the original importer owns at 

 the present time the finest show farm in the United States. The remainder 

 were taken to Whittier, Cal., where a breeding farm was established, at 

 present containing over three hundred birds; from this shipment fully eighty 

 per cent of the Ostriches in America have descended, besides those con- 

 tained in Mr. Cawston's farm at Nice, France. During the Pan-American 

 Exposition at Buffalo (1901), the last lot of Ostriches were brought to the 

 United States. These were twelve Nubians, the most gigantic and mag- 

 nificent of all the species. After the fair, six of these birds went to Mr. 

 Cawston, who arranged the importation, the remainder going to the Pearson 

 ranch in Arizona. The first appearance of the Ostrich in Arizona was in 

 1888, when Clanton & Co. purchased of Mr. Cawston one pair of breed- 

 ing birds and eleven chicks. During transportation ten of the chicks met 

 with accidental death and the following year the hen was killed. From the 

 survivors, the male bird and one chick, ninety-seven full-grown birds were 

 sold to the Arizona Ostrich Company in 1898. In the same year, Mr. A. Y. 

 Pearson and Mr. J. Taylor established the Florida Ostrich Farm at Jackson- 

 ville, with thirty birds purchased from Mr. Cawston, and the original Dr. 

 Protheroe shipment. In the spring of 1899 this firm dissolved, Mr. Taylor 

 retaining the Florida farm, which is one of the finest exhibition places ir> 

 the country. Mr. Pearson took the California interests of the firm, and in 

 November, 1899, he purchased a large tract of land ten miles west of 

 Phoenix, Ariz., to which he removed his California stock and also pur- 

 chased two hundred more birds from the Arizona Ostrich Company. The 

 Pearson Farm is now known as the Phoenix -American Ostrich Company, 

 the corporation owning over one thousand birds, making it the largest 

 Ostrich ranch in America. There is also the National Ostrich Company 

 near Phoenix and the Tempe Ostrich Company, of Tempe, which together 

 own several hundred birds. A new farm has lately been established near 

 Phoenix, by J. M. Harmon, which is known as the Big Five Ostrich Farm. 

 Besides the above there are about three hundred birds owned by the Bentley 

 farm at San Diego, and the Leach farm at San Jose, Cal., the Coburn farm, 

 Hot Springs, Ark., and a few at Asheville, N. C. There are today some- 

 thing less than three thousand Ostriches in America. Until recently most 

 of the farms were maintained for exhibition purposes, and it is only within 

 the last few years that serious attention has been directed to the commer- 

 cial possibilities of Ostrich -farming. It is not a wild hazard to believe that 

 in five years Arizona alone will contain ten thousand Ostriches, valued at 

 $3,000,000, with an annual output of feathers valued at $350,000. 



South Africa exports annually Ostrich feathers to the value of about 

 $6,000,000, of which nearly one-third finally reach the United States. A 



