Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/282

 repairs. The most prosperous farming country in the world is the ostrich district in Cape Colony; instead of owning one automobile, as do our successful corn and wheat farmers, the ostrich farmers own two and three automobiles each. The best ostrich country is known as the Oudtshoorn district, and is probably 70×60 miles in extent. Mr. Davis told of one irrigated farm of four hundred acres and 1,800 birds for which an offer of $560,000 was lately refused. The ostrich farmers are nearly all Boers, although many Jews live in the district to trade in the feathers. It is said that more than one hundred of the farmers in the bird district are worth more than $250,000 each. Alfalfa is grown extensively. One acre of alfalfa will graze five ostriches, and the average ostrich will annually produce feathers worth $25. Ostriches are raised in California and elsewhere, but conditions for ostrich farming are nearest perfection in South Africa. A good many ostriches run wild in Africa, but feathers from the wild birds are not good. Ostrich eggs or living birds cannot be taken out of South Africa, and some growers have fancy strains of birds that are worth from $2,000 to $2,500 per pair. One South-African ostrich king has devoted so much time to ostriches, and lived among them so long, that both Mr. Davis and Mr. Atterbury agreed that he had grown to look like an ostrich Mr. Davis says South Africa is a better fruit country than California, and that it will produce better oranges with less effort The two punctures caused us to be late, and Mr. Atterbury's automobile driver, whom he called Bristow, fairly flew over the ground. I sat on the back seat with Mr. At