Profits of Ostrich Farming.

(From the London Spectator).

he taste for ostrich feathers, like the taste for gold and diamonds, would appear to be instinctive and universal, is displayed by the savage in Africa and Australia, as well as by the fine lady in Paris, and is gratified at an expense which we recommend to the attention of the next economist who discourses on the costliness of philanthropic work or scientific inquiry. We thought we knew something of the statistics of luxury, but we confess to a sensation of surprise at finding that besides certain quantities exported from the Argentine Republic and some other places, the export of ostrich feathers from Egypt, the Cape, Barbary, Mogador, and Senegal, reaches the astounding sum of £633,000.

At present the ostrich has been partially domesticated, and in 1875 a careful census showed that there were no less than 32,247 domesticated ostriches within Cape Colony alone. The bird appears to need no artificial food if he has plenty of good grass, but if the grass is sour he wants crushed bones, and good farmers improve his condition with allowances of "mealies," or Indian corn. He would, however, in suitable localities yield very large profits, except for one circumstance— page 208 the great amount of room that he requires. Sixty acres a bird is a very large allowance even for profitable stock. According to the statements published by Messrs. Harting and Mosenthal, it takes 600 acres to feed eighty birds comfortably; and those acres, even if practically valueless, must be fenced in with wire at a cost of some £500. The bird cannot jump, and makes no effort to cross the fencing, but it seems certain that he will not bear confinement close enough to prevent his enjoying a healthy amount of his customary exercise. Of course, while feathers yielded from £20 to £40 a pound, the profits were enormous; but in the present day, when the average value (according to official returns) £5 5s. per pound, the farmer must content himself, even though he grow ostriches, with moderate returns in cash. He can get a pound of feathers a year from each bird, and by the latest statistics, is pretty sure of £5 a pound all round; but £400 a year, though a good yield in such a locality from 600 acres, is not enough to make diamond-hunters quit their avocations. Still, as the land is usually fenced off from a farm too large to be cultivated, and food costs little, and the profit is to be received in cash, the rearing of ostriches may be considered a fairly established, and very curious industry.

Mr. Hellier, of Graham's Town, thus describes a scene he witnessed in an ostrich enclosure belonging to Dr. Douglas, of Hilton, a farm about twelve miles from Graham's Town:—"Out of the enclosure given up to the exclusive use of this polygamous family of three, we entered through a locked gate into a large enclosure or paddock, in which there were 58 one and two-year old birds. They all looked exceedingly well, and though they did not dance they seemed full of life. They do sometimes favour the spectators with a dance, and it is one of the funniest of all the freaks or habits of animals that evidence a sense of the jokeful we ever be held. We once saw some twenty nearly full-grown birds waltzing together. They began with a sort of sidling slow revolution on their toes, moving their wings gently up and down, and presently they seemed to get into the spirit of the thing without the aid of any fiddler that we saw, and spun round at a rate that would have astonished anyone but a dancing dervish. In dancing they swept round and round without ever coming into contact with each other." It is pretty clear that the ostrich could not be bred to a profit in Europe, as the grazing-ground that the bird requires would cost too much.