Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1899-02-16
AN OSTRICH FARM.
There In One In floridas Some Other
Items OF Interest IN h wing by Mr..
Jesse w. stanley.

DEAR ARGUs:-Verily this
country of ours is one of variety
and great possibilities. I was il
Florida a week or ten days age
and am now writing from the first
town I have reached in Alabama
The weather in Florida was reg.
ular May weather, as we have il
at home, with temperature of &c
to 80 degrees and vegetables, to-
matoes, beans and some orange
blossoms to be seen and offered
for sale. Since then what a
change! This morning when j
first looked out in Columbus, Ga.
the snow was four inches deep on
all sides, and the thermometer at
the "Rankin House" stood at 19
degrees, and when I reached this
point snow was still falling and
it was ten degrees colder. This
is something that the coolest in
habitant" will haYe to talk about
for there are children on all
sides, in this country, a dozen or
more years of age who never saw
any snow, and as I write from
this Alabama town there is five
inches of snow and the thermome-
ter stands at 10 degrees above.
To go back to st. Augustine
and look at its narrow streets and
old houses, some a century or
more old and see some of the in
habitants who still cling to Span
ish modes of life, and go to the
old fort with it's two centuries of
age, low walls, dark cavernous
and in shop windows,
offered for sale, see the instru-
ments of torture for prisoners and
enemies of war, and think how
much of misery, if it were posi-
BILE, those walls could unfold, and
turning e the splendid paved
streets in the new city, the
magnificent hotels constructed by
IL. Stannard Oil King and Rail-
:oad Magnate to make easy the
life and the pleasure of living a
lream: when looking from one
extreme to the other, the Cuban
people, whether as annexed or
Independent, have much to thank
! Divine Ruler for in getting
rom under the bondage of a gov
'rnment whose deeds of cruelty
md espionage stand without a
parallel in the history, of the
It may not be known at our
lome, yet there is close by Jack
'onville the only Ostrich farm in
America-out of California. tits
bout two miles out and a visit to
t is fraught with unusual inter-
st to one who has not seen it.
t is entered through an elegant
classroom, where at this season
# the year, a prosperous trade is
in plumes and tips, boas,
ans, etc. The farm is enclosed
y, what for the want of a better
way of describing, I would call
a fence on stilts," for it is only
lose at the top, or on a line with
he neck of the Ostrich. 1t is
With the Ostrich like the wild
turkey, he never looks down, but
p. The owner is an Englishma n,
nd he says that some days his
ncome, when visitors are numer-
US, is as much as one hundred
per day He has quite a
lumber of these Arabian birds.
he largest ones are ten and
welve feet tall and the heaviest
zeigh four hundred pounds. They
ost about $500 per pair, and a
air are expected to yield
lumage that will sell yearly for
275. Four broods of chicks are
atched annually, forty days
cling required for the process,
rom fourteen to eighteen eggs are
a setting" The male
irds share with their mates the
ares of incubation. The female
oes on the nest at early morn
ne, near sunrise, and leaves it ct
bout four in the afternoon, or
II or IL hours, when the male
hes charge and stays till re-
ieved of his charge, and it is said
bat neither viii vary fifteen
minutes, any day, in the time they
ONE to take the place of the one
hat In on the nest. Another