The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-08-18
A SOUTH AFRICAN FARM.
Boer's Primitive Methods Elands and
 zebras in Captivity.

zebras in Captivity
 The Boer trusts to Providence to bring the harvest. Scattering the corn broadcast over the rough veldt he turns the soil with a single furrow plough of clumsy type, drawn by eight oxen. His labors being thus far completed he breaks up the clods and pieces of sod with a harrow of some manufacture The family Bible is next produced and a supplication offered for blessing up on the crop. Nature is then fully in trusted with the responsibility of pro ducing harvest.
 The daily newspaper and the tele- phone are, of course, an unknown quaa- tity in the farming districts of South Africa. There the honesteads and an entire day is spent visiting the nearest neighbor. Social intercourse is by no means neglected. In heavy wagon, behind a span of sixteen bulllocks, a whole family will trek, and above their sounds of tollity may be heard the screeching of a Hottentot or Colonial" driver weird and penetrating,
 With a long whip cracking vigorously these dusky drivers command the oxen In the Dutch language they under stand no other. Then they return by the light of the moon. The children are lulled to sleep by the confusion of sounds peculiar to the South African veldt-the croaking of bass and soprano voiced frogs, the hooting of an oc- casional owl, the almost human notes of tackal or the penetrating and unonotonous refrain of a Kaffir intent upon letting the world know of his existences, beside the creaking of the wagon and screeching of the driver.
 I chanced at dusk on one occasion to ask for hospitality at a Boer in Rho desia The family of ten, as l after ward learned, had just returned from a trek to farm hard by, bringing with them several guests. The head of the family, a man of some 60 years with a flowing gray beard, appeared at thu door. Nothing that I was wet to the skin, he said in a deep, husky voice with broken accent, "You are welcome stranger
 I was given a change of clothing and subsequently, sat down to supper at { long table constructed from packing cases and spread with tablecloth once white, but which showed the i'm print of time.
 The meal concluded, napkin wal produced, and starting with OUT elderly host was passed down the entire line l A black boy took charge of the soile( dishes, the table was removed cleared for dancing. Two conoertinaa, or ac corddions, furnished the music and mat waltzing ensued Afterward a game O bagatelle was enjoyed by the young people,
 The house was built of poles anl thatch and covered with mud. 1t coul( l boast of but two rooms. There wa but single sleeping room, so sard1n' fashion we were packed in a row on tn, floor, twelve deep, with our host in th centre. Three of the guests occupied < the only bed in the house. The condi tion desperate on our floor bunk wilel
 the head of the house gave a sigma
 "Pindula," Kafffr word, meaning turl around, whereupon the whole line flop ped over for a change of position.
 I woke up to listen to the last croal
 before dawn of a bullfrog. The roon
 wss soon astir, and after indulging fl
 a cup of thick coffee tramped over tn
 farm in company with our host.
 An interesting sight was g. doze I newly matched ostrich chicks which l1as
 couple of days before been capture
 on the veldt in their wild state. Thes birds, it has been claimed develop wit even greater rapidity and produce flea thers of a superior quality to tn
 domesticated ostrich. Even mor wonderful did 1t seem to see the larges of the South African wild buck--th
 eland- inspanned to cart, They ha
 been taken into captivity when youn
 in the course of a few weeks had be come tractable A small tame zebr came running up to US without tn least sign of fear and puckered up h face.
 A cattle disease, the African coas fever yer similar to Texas fever, ha : swept through the country in 1901 an
 the number of COWS was conspicuous
 sIlaaIl.A patch of Boer tobacco locke ? promising and grove of young orana and lemon trees was one of the speci; features of the farm. We plodde : through a large field of corn, or naea ies," as the South African would sa,
 and one of potatoes, where the weC were in places up to our knees an there was a general air of neglect. B
 this time wew ere thoroughly wet vii the heavy dew. The big barn wa : lacking here and what little machinel l there was to be seen was left where had last been used.
 There is generally a ready market fC l almost all classes of produce but e pecially in the northern provinces South Africa are exorbitant raHwa 5 tariffs prohibitive to a large expo. r trade with the other colonies. Cor :. sidering the excellent agrioulturi possibilities there is a surprising n large another amount of foodsstuffs ir
 ported into the country,--Kansas Gil rl stsx.