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THE AMERICAN GARDEN. 



[September, 



HENRY B. ELLWANGER. 



Deep regret has been felt throughout the 

 country at the death of Henry B. Elhvanger, 

 son of George Ellwanger, the senior member 

 of the celebrated nursery firm of Ellwanger 

 & Barry, Rochester, N. Y. Only thirty-two 

 years old at the time of his decease, on the 

 7th of August, he had already risen to a 

 prominent position among horticulturists 

 everywhere, and was considered the highest 

 authority in several specialties to which he 

 had devoted himself. His book on " The 

 Rose," published recently, is generally ac- 

 knowledged as the best work of the kind 

 ever published in America. To the profes- 

 sion in general his loss is irreparable, as the 

 number of young men who imbued with a 

 natural inborn enthusiasm for their calling 

 combine thorough practical knowledge with 

 special scientific training, is deplorably 

 small. 



Personally, he was one of the most modest 

 and unassuming men we ever knew, al- 

 though in several branches of science and art 

 his attainments were far above those of ama- 

 teurs. His natural refinement and large font 

 of varied knowledge made him a most agree- 

 able companion, while his amiable disposi- 

 tion made him befriended and beloved by 

 all who had the good fortune to know him. 



His loss is deeply felt by a large number 

 of friends, while in his home, in the circle of 

 his family from which he had to part so 

 soon, he leaves a vacant place that can never 

 be filled again. To his devoted wife and 

 fatherless children, as well as to his bereaved 

 parents, we extend our sincere and hearfelt 

 sympathy. 



iscollaneous. 



OSTRICH FARMING. 



This new industry is now attracting con- 

 siderable attention, and as the experiments 

 made so far at the ostrich farm near Anna- 

 heim, in southern California, have proved 

 highly satisfactory and promising, the fol- 

 lowing description by Gen. W. G. Le Due, in 

 the N. Y. Tribune, may be of interest to many 

 of our readers : 



THE INCUBATOR. 



On the work done in the incubator and 

 egg-room depends the success of the ostrich 

 farm. A broad shelf on one side contains 

 about fifty ostrich eggs, and any number of 

 eggs of the brown Leghorn chicken. The 

 incubator has been used for hatching these 

 eggs prior to trusting 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 in form, weighing about three and 

 one-half pounds, measuring in circumference 

 eighteen by sixteen inches, and with holding 

 capacity equal to a full quart measure. The 

 color is a creamy white, and the shell is 

 equally pitted all over and porous in appear- 

 ance. Sixteen eggs have been put in the 

 incubator up to the time of this visit, June 

 29th, and the remaining eggs, and what 

 more may come, will wait for the Halstead 

 ostrich incubator, which has made a favora- 



ble reputation in Cape Colony in the specialty 

 of hatching ostrich eggs, and which is daily 

 expected. 



These sixteen eggs were placed in the incu- 

 bator on May 14th, 15th, and 16th, and 

 their period of incubation has nearly passed, 

 for the chickens are moving in their shells, 

 ready for advent into California life. One 

 came as avant courrier yesterday, and to-day 

 is a beauty of its kind. He is covered with 

 speckled brown downy feathers, except on 

 the head and neck and legs ; he is as wild, 

 shy, and active as the young antelope fawn, 

 and, only a day old, is as large as a full-grown 

 Leghorn hen. Uneasy and restless, in con- 

 stant motion, and with inquiring eyes, he I 

 no doubt waits impatiently the companions 

 who are to join him in his feather-produc- 

 ing 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-shells ; 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 

 months), in accordance with the rules and 

 regulations pi-escribed and enforced here for 

 the successful promotion of the honor and 

 profit properly due the enterprising gentle- 

 men who have initiated this new industry. 



PAE DOCKS AND FARM. 



Leaving the front door, looking east, I 

 turned to the south, and before me is an in- 

 closure 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 irritated ostrich would break an ordinary 

 fence board in splinters. These parallelo- 

 grams making the L are divided into twelve | 

 paddocks, 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 excel- < 

 lent growth of Alfalfa, Turnips, Cabbages, 

 Onions, Maize, and Beets, all of which have 

 been planted and grown since March 25th, 

 and are on time for the voracious chickens, 

 which are expected to rally round their ex- j 

 emplary parents in an all-summer campaign 

 against the fifty-four acres of green food pro- 



, vided for them. 



In close proximity to the paddocks is an 

 artesian well, 300 feet deep, which dis- 

 charges, four feet above surface, 12,000 

 gallons of water each hour — sufficient to 

 irrigate, in this locality, from two to three 

 hundred acres of land, planted to ordinary 

 crops, and with the average rain-fall. The 

 entire farm is a mile square, or 640 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 at- 

 tention, and which Dr. Protheroe, of Buenos 

 Ayres, and Dr. C. J. Sketchley, both formerly 

 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-up capital of $.30,000, Drs. Protheroe 

 and Sketchley retaining an interest, and Dr. 

 Sketchley giving the benefit of his experi- 

 ence as superintendent of the farm for the 

 present. 



This enterprise may be fairly pronounced a 

 success, for the company has more orders for 

 birds than it can promise to fill this season, 

 and at its own prices, which are $100 to 

 $120 for a healthy chick four months old. 

 These chickens will yield their first feathers 

 when eight months old, which picking should 

 bring, at present market prices, from seven 

 dollars to ten dollars. The next picking, 

 eight months after the first, should bring 

 from forty dollars to fifty dollars, and in two 

 years the bird, if well cared for, is expected 

 to be in full plumage, 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 chick- 

 ens every year for twenty years. 



HOW SMALL A HOUSE CAN BE. 



To country boys, who have not room 

 enough in the old farm-house, and who find 

 the hundred-acre home farm too small for 

 their ambitions, the size of some city houses 

 may be interesting. 



In all probability, the smallest brick house 

 in New-York, says The Sun, is that at 249*2 

 William street. It is four stories high, and 

 five and a half feet wide. It looks like a 

 chimney with windows in it. A barrel barri- 

 cades the basement area. On the first floor 

 a cobbler has his shop. He has a three-foot 

 show window and a two-foot door-way, and 

 as he sits on his bench no one can pass him 

 unless he draws his elbows in. There is a 

 staircase at the back of this singular house, 

 but the upper floors are reached by door- ways 

 in the wall leading from an adjoining lodging- 

 house. The artist might huntthrough London 

 or Paris without finding anything more pict- 

 uresque in its way than the immediate neigh- 

 borhood of this queer building. There are 

 behind it, on Chambers street, one-story 

 sheds, two-story shanties, tall city tene- 

 ments, and a house with a curious hanging 

 addition on the end of it high in air, and 

 everywhere every foot of room is utilized. 



THE LARGEST LAND-OWNER ON THE 

 CONTINENT. 



Colonel Dan Murphy, of Halleck's Station, 

 Elko County, came to California in 1844, 

 and may be said to have made the country 

 pay him well for his time. He is now, says 

 the Reno Gazette, probably the largest pri- 

 vate land-owner on this continent. He has 

 4,000,000 acres of land in one body in 

 Mexico, 60,000 in Nevada, and 23,000 in 

 California. His Mexico grant he bought, 

 four years ago, for $200,000, or five cents 

 an acre. It is sixty miles long, and covers a 

 beautiful country of hill and valley, pine 

 timber and meadow land. It comes within 

 twelve miles of the city of Durango, which 

 is to be a station on the Mexican Central. 

 Mr. Murphy raises wheat on his California 

 land, and cattle on that in Nevada. He 

 raised 55,000 sacks last year, and ships 

 6,000 head of cattle right along. 



