At this establishment I found about 300 of those birds, which, taking them all round, young and old, were worth about £30 a piece. Each bird fit for plucking gives two crops of feathers a year, and produces, on an average, feathers to the value of £15 per annum. The creatures feed themselves unless when sick or young, and live upon the various bushes and grasses of the land. The farm is divided out into paddocks, and, with those which are breeding, one cock with two hens occupies each paddock. The young birds,--for they do not breed till they are three years old,--or those which are not paired, run in flocks of thirty or forty each. They are subject to diseases which of course require attention, and are apt to damage themselves, sometimes breaking their own bones, and getting themselves caught in the wire fences. Otherwise they are hardy brutes, who can stand much heat and cold, can do for long periods without water, who require no delicate feeding, and give at existing prices ample returns for the care bestowed upon them. But, nevertheless, ostrich farming is a precarious venture. The birds are of such value, a full grown bird in perfect health being worth as much as £75, that there are of course risks of great loss. And I doubt whether the industry has, as yet, existed long enough for those who employ it to know all its conditions. The two great things to do are to hatch the eggs, and then to pluck or cut the feathers, sort them, and send them to the market. I think I may say that ostrich farming without the use of an incubator can never produce great results. The birds injure their feathers by sitting and at every hatching lose two months. There is, too, great uncertainty as to the number of young birds which will be produced, and much danger as to the fate of the young bird when hatched. An incubator seems to be a necessity for ostrich farming. Surely no less appropriate word was ever introduced into the language, for it is a machine expressly invented to render unnecessary the process of incubation. The farmer who devotes himself to artificial hatching provides himself with an assortment of dummy eggs,--consisting of eggshells blown and filled with sand,--and with these successfully allures the hens to lay. The animals are so large and the ground is so open that there is but little difficulty in watching them and in obtaining the eggs. As each egg is worth nearly £5 I should think that they would be open to much theft when the operation becomes more general, but as yet there has not come up a market for the receipt of stolen goods. When found they are brought to the head quarters and kept till the vacancy occurs for them in the machine.