The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-04-25

laying AoA 80 WaIu eggs at TX 0dCu
with no freedom. 1t took that year to
recover the birds. This is as awkward
as raising pine apples on my upright
farm in North Carolina. Making a
study of the canned pine apple only, I
knew very little of it as a shrub and
did not know until recently whether
it was a citrus or deciduous fruit. I
have therefore been taken advantage
OF by dealers, I now see, and have in
fact been trying to graft the Rhode
Island Greenwich on the Jack pine.
The ostrich can eat objects larger
than the neck, which seems impossible.
Big beets or mangels are used for food
as we'll as grain. These mangels grow
to the size of a persons thigh q decline
to give the persons name). And with
a hatcher-and and ostrich hatchit-
the owner chops off the big end of the
beet and losses it to the bird, who swal-
lows it entirely whole. You see it as
it goes down the, neck, sometimes be-
fore and then again on the side of the
neck, like a travelling tumor, till it
strikes the gizzard of this beautiful
songster.
One of the female birds laid a set of
croquet balls for the editor of the paper
here and then began on a big Easter
job the following week. With a bottle
of diamond dye and a quart of cracked
wheat she would surprise even people
who have lived in New York and who
know almost everything.
The birds are good to eat, and the
second joint will relieve the pangs of
hunger for hours. The ostrich has a
wishbone that is often used to pillow
corn with or cultivate the soil of the
orange orchard. The kick of an ostrich
will split an oak stump or knock off So
on a hotel bill here.
One of them seemed quite fond of me
and ate a large stuffed horned toad out
Of my pocket. I got so I could hold
him by one wing and feel of his plumes
the ostrich's plumes, I mean. They
have a sort of graceful yet awkward
walk, which some critics have charged
me with when exiting from the stage.
1t is called the Soudanteeter.
Here at Santa Barbara a strange in
cident occurred not long ago. General
Burnett, the coast special agent for the
pension bureau told me about it.
An old prisoner and livery and bag
gage man worth $50, 900 was discovered
to be drawing pension for the loss of
an arm, while his widow in the east
was drawing a pension also. It seems
that the wife's father had been the vii
lain. He had given the wife notice by
forged papers of the husbands death
and then assured the husband in like
manner of the wife's death, so that
after the war he had come to Califor-
MIA alone, leaving his children in charge
of the villainous grandfather, who had
taken this method of educating the
children in the Catholic church, the
father being a Protestant.
The father soon after married here
and for Is years has lived with his Sec
ond wife totally ignorant of the other
wife's existence. He could not of course
succeed in getting possession of his
children by his former marriage, but
was blessed with a second crop of Cali
fornia children, which answered every
purpose.
I imagine such a man in the beauti-
full city of Santa Barbara, surrounded
by comfort and a new home which beat
the old one all to death, suddenly con
fronted by a general pension sleuth
hound with undoubted proofs Of big
amy, bastardy and fraud upon the gov
eminent.
Where are our melodrama artists?
Do they read the papers, or do they
prefer European material adapted to
this country?
Imagine g veteran of a great war,
crippled by the loss of an arm, who
yet had the courage to fight the battle
Of life all over again in loneliness and
in a new world, past middle life now
and with the tears on his war-wOrn
features, confronted with the charge
that he has been for thi teen years a
feIon. yet innocent as I am of a wicked
or impure thought
We had little earthquake shock the
other evening. They occur now and
again often enough, so that the wooden
buildings are the rule and stone or
brick the exception. Redwood is a
good resister of these shocks and is
used exclusively for the body of the
building. 1t is very firm and. seems
made for that purpose. 1t is also al
most f~ireproof; at least it smolders long
enough hefnra blazing SO that anY fire