, 1886-06-27
OSTRICH FARMING IN AFRICA.


A South African MIssionary's Account OF
the Industry-A Discovery.
Rev. Father Croonenberghs, S. j., the
South African missionary now at st.
Xavier's, was called upon recently by
a reporter. The newsman was pleas
antly greeted and invited to the reverend
fathers studio.
You want TO know something about
ostrich farming, do your he began.
well, that graceful wonder of creation
would soon be a thing of the past had
not the savage Beers found it more
profitable to tame than to kill it. Yet
even now they destroy the beautiful
bird i'll the Ralahari desert and in the
region toward the Zambezi. A Boer
whom l knew killed the last wild os-
trich OF the site of the now famous Kim
berly diamond mine. The same Boer,
in 1879. on the table-land of the Mania
bella country, killed s%eventy-five cock
birds (male ostriches). for whose feathers
he got 5000 pounds sterling. and, like
all hunters, still remains poor.
1T was about 1870 that the first young
ostrich chicks, as big as young hares,
were harbored and nursed in some hunt
er's wagons, in the far interior. and
brought TO the southern colonies. These
birds were fed on Indian corn, Caffria
corn (millet). shoots of young cactus and
their fruits. After six months the cboc-
olate colored birds stood as high a.
heavy turkeys. After nine months their
first feathers began to fall. When twelve
months old the black cocks showed
themselves among the gray hens. And
In the third year a pair of them sepa-
rated from the troop for making a
nest. The Beers at once saw the
possible gain. They encamped the
breeding birds and saw nature
at work. The five to six feet high cock
showed his glorious long black feathers
all over the body except the bare limbs.
The pen of his wings was fossy silver
white and the palmy feathers of his
bundle tail had a rosy color. For pro
tecting his chocolate colored hen and her
eighteen egg in their sandy nest, the
bird would show fight. and the inclosed
birds took their first breakfast on the
yelks of two or three unmatched eggs.
Meanwhile the remainder of the birds
had been put in the camp. and as the
beautiful feathers began to show, the
Beers made at M end of the big camp u
smaller one, surrounded with hedges of
thorn trees and other briers. AT the ex-
tremity of this last camp a rough gate
was made, leaving an opening into a
passage one yard wide and three yards
long, shut with an outside door. On
horses the Beers drove the birds into the
smaller camp from the larger. Then
opening the door they spread food in the
passage, and as oon as two or threv
birds were in the passage the door was
locked behind them. 1t must be noticed
that those tremendous ostriches kick like
cocks, as they are not horses, SO the
Beers, jumping into the passage behind
the birds, were out of the reach of their
dreadful toes. And while the greedy an
imals were feeding he found all this time
for plucking all ripe black feathers and
cutting out at the quill all the magnifi-
cent white feathers. These latter are cut
out half dried, because they are then
still in their first beauty, while when
completely ripe the bird spoils them
while trying to pull them out.
In this way ostrich farming wa
foun out, and in a few years farms of
300 and more ostriches made a new
source of wealth for south Africa. Toe
much of a good thing can prove destruct-
i've, and the ostrich mania prove so foI
the Beers. In 1879 every Boer dreamed
of becoming an ostrich farmer. and rs
coin was rare he paid in stock. The re-
suit was that the stock lost all its price,
30 too sheep and wool, while the ostriches
rose rapidly to fabulous prices of from
500 to 600 pounds sterling a pair. Then
feathers were high in price, varying with
their color and kinds from $40 a pound
to $3.50 and more for prime.
But soon the over-stocked feather
market ruined even the market, and dis
ease broke out among the birds them
selves. The result was that hundreds of
Beers, having no more cattle, and losing
even their birds, had to sell off their
farms, of which the price naturally sunk
also. So their temporary wealth soon
became the source of great poverty, of
which a few spectators p%rofited by buy
ing in farms and stock.
Since then matters have been settled.
Stock and wool trade and agriculture
nave resumed. Ostrich farming is going
on in a moderate and prosperous scale.
A direct trade in ostrich feathers between
America and south Africa ought to prove
paying."-Cincinnati Sun Interview.