Arizona republican., 1900-11-14
BATTERED EMERY.
Plumage for Millinery Now Artif-
 cially Produced.
The Humble Barnyard Fowl Now Furnishes the Material for a Great Deal of the New Hat
 Trimming.

The demand for feathers for mill linery purposes has caused an inventor to experiment in this field. and he has succeeded so well that many of our most fashionable bird plumages and feathers are artifcially manufactured. The trade in feathers amounts to mil lions of dollars annually, and the sup ply of the birds furnishing them is decreasing so rapidly that it is quite essential that substitutes should be found. How many women who wear the beautiful ostrich tips and plumes know whether they are the genuine article or artificial feathers? The work of raising ostriches in California has certainly brought the cost of these feathers down to a reasonable figure, but hardly to the ridiculously low prices that are sometimes asked for them in stores. The artificial ostrich feathers have their quills made of eel luloid, and the barbs of silk waste. Then when dyed and skillfully curled it would take an expert to detect them from the genuine article.
 Various other expensive feathers and plumes are manufactured out of silk and cotton waste, and inventors are constantly devising new methods by which they can supply the demands Of fashion at little cost to the public and at great profit 10 the manufacturers. The utilization of poultry feathers for millinery purposes is a subject of inn portance. There has been an uneX- pected demand for the feathers of chickens, ducks and geese this year. Farmers have really found that their poultry was profitable. Some of the special breeds of farmyard ducks and geese have remarkably beautiful feath- CTS, shimmering with gold, green and blue, and tinged with a metallic luster of unusual beauty. All of these have value aside from the meat and eggs they furnish. But even the common barnyard poultry is made to furnish material for the market. By dyeing the feathers they can be made to imi- tate the brightest plumes that ever graced the back or topknot of trop ical bird. The plumes are artfully made up by hand, each individual feath- CT being colored beforehand. and then worked into an exquisite design. Some of these plumes are so gorgeous that they are more in demand than the gen. uine plumes of wild birds.
 A remarkable machine is in use for plucking the feathers from dead poul- try, and by its use the feather in- dustry has been greatly simplified and expanded. The dead bird is placed on a table, and the picker strips it of all feathers in just half minute. Then the plucked feathers are passed rapidly along to another small room where q current of air sorts the very fine from the heavy ones. The very lightest and softest feathers are used for pillows, but all the others find some use in the millinery trade. It is be- coming the fashion now to have cloaks and mantles made out of the feathers. and some handsome pieces of wearing apparel have been made in this way. Such feather cloak is more expensive than sable or seal. In the National mu- scum at Washington there is such q cloak that is said to be valued by the authorities at million dollars. It was made of the feathers of an extinct bird for one of the old kings of the Hawaiian islands, and contains probably several million feathers.-N. Y. Times.