Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/187

 OSTRICH-FARMING.— IRBIOATION. HI fetched £10, and before the year 1883 the stock of healthy, full grovrn birds with tine pluinugo was valued ut hundredH of thout^ands of pounds. But since that time ostrieh-famiing has become a more precarious occupati<m. Disease has greatly diminished the prospects of breeders ; the expenditure bus gone on increasing in undue proportion to the profits; and worse still, fashion, ever fickle, bus reduced by one-half the market value of ostrich feathers. These beautiful personal ornuments are no longer so highly esteemed since industry bus rendered them more common. Nevertheless Cape Colony has hitherto preserved the virtual mono|)oly of the trade, the repeated attempts made to domesticate the ostrich in Algeria, Tnpolitana, Australia, the Argentine States, and California, having had but little success. In order to prevent the exportation of the Cape breed, the administration has imposed a prohibitive export tax of illOO on every adult bird and £5 on every egg. Irrigation Works. — Trade. Both for the purposes of stock-breeding and for agricultural operations generally', the Cape Colonists need an abundant supply of water. But perennial streams and copious springs are unfortunately ever^'where somewhat rare. Hence a chief care of the farmers must necessarily l)e how best to husband the rain water and prevent its running waste. The fertilising fluid is now drawn off from most of the rivers, and distributed by irrigation canals along the riverain tracts. Elsewhere, the natural reservoirs are directly tapped by hand and cliain-pumps, and suchlike modern hydraulic appliances. But in the districts destitute of springs or permanent streams, the underground supplies have to be reached by sinking deep wells in the mountain gorges, along the dried-up wadys, and where- ever subterranean streams may still be flowing. The grazers of the arid Karroo country have acquired great skill in detecting, by the character of the vegetation, the spots were such reservoirs have been formed below the surface. ^fost of the landowners whose estates present a certain incline and other facilities, have taken advantage of the natural lie of the land to cai)ture and store the rain water in large depressions formed by artificial dams and embankments. Some of these lacustrine basins are some miles in circumference, and after the wet season often contain as much as thirty-five million cubic feet, or about two hundred and twenty million gallons of the precious fluid. Thanks to these extensive works, many tracts in the Karroos have already undergone a great change. I^arge trees, orchards, and tall succulent herbage now flourish in districts where formerly nothing was to be seen but bare arid lands relieved here and there with patches of thorny scrub. But these oases in the wilderness are occasionally exposed to the ravages of the all-devouring locusts, clouds of which at intervals of fifteen or twenty years alight on the verdant slopes and bottom-lands, in a few hours con- suming every blade of grass. Till recently the English and Dutch settlers confined themselves to farm operations and the export of the raw materials to Europe, the few local industries