The Arizona copper camp., 1918-09-21
CHANGE IN STYLE
SAVES 800 OSTR|CHES

PHOENIX, Arizona, Sept. 13.-The
fact that their feathers are to be worn
on milady's hat this fall and winter
has just saved 800 birds from eXtinc
ton. Usually it is the other way and
Fashions decree that feathers are to
be worn has in the past BODIED no
good to the feathered race, but this
time it worked the other way.
Eight hundred splendid ostriches in
the Salt River Valley of Arizona owe
their lives today to a change in the
style of trimming women's hats. They
were saved just at the last moment
from fate as ignominious as that of
the turkeys and chickens on adjoining
farms, for they were to have been
killed and eaten.
When the war broke out it hit the
ostrich plume industry, and hit it
hard. Ostrich plumes were a drug on
the market, and thousands of fine
birds owned by Arizona ostrich grow
ers were sold for almost nothing.
Most of them were bought by other
concerns at what seemed to them
at the time bargain prices. But the
plume market failed to revive and
what ostriches remained were eating
their heads off. The California os-
trich men were not buying any more
birds. They had more than they knew
what to do with. Then it was that
somebody suggested eating them.
The experiment was tried and
proved a success. Some birds were
killed and eaten, but the practice did
not become general An ostrich din.
ner was not curiosity, but ostrich
did not become the piece de resis.
tance that some enthusiastic epicures
had predicted
Last spring local owners decided
that they could no longer keep the
birds. The matter of marketing the
ostriches as meat was taken up with
T. A. Riordan, food administrator fol
Arizona, and he gave his consent. A
committee had the task in charge
and soon had all arrangements com
| pleted. The ostriches were to be
slaughtered at the ranch and rushed
to the city, where they would be
placed in cold storage prior to sell
ing. The wholesale dealer was. al
ready. The shops that were to handle
ostrich meat at retail. had been an
nounced. The public was educated
through the press to the value of the
ostrich as an article of food lit was
| implored' to eat ostrich meat and save
beef and pork for the soldiers and fol
our allies.
'Order an ostrich steak for supper
became the slogan, and thousands ot
Arlzonans, willing to try anything
once for their country's, if not fol
their stomachs, sake, were ready fol
the new dish. How to cook ostriches
in the most toothsome manner, how
to make ostrich hash out OF the re
mains Of the roast for dinner, became
an absorbing topic
And then all at once the ostricl
agitation collapsed died and disap
peared. War news and politics
crowded ostrich recipes out of the
papers, just as it had been crowded
out by the bird of the desert. The
retail shops, when asked as to the
supply of birds, said that they had no
received any as yet. People who haC
figured on having ostrich meat fol
dinner had to revise their menus an(
put off eating the huge birds unit
cooler weather.
Eastern stockholders in the few re
naming ostrich ranches are said q
have caused the change in plans. Witt
ostrich plumes again becoming the
trimming for stylish fall millinery
they have decided not to SELL Plumes
are coming back ,and the ostrich as
an article of food is not yet.