Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1893 — Arizona’s Ostrich Industry. [ARTICLE]

Arizona’s Ostrich Industry.

Arizona seems to be particularly adapted to strange industries. It is like a transported sectiou of the desert regions of Africa or Asia apparently. The camels turned loose by the Government years ago have increased until the settlers have to kill them to prevent their stampeding all the stock in tho Territory. There is one industry transplanted from Africu, however, that has not turned out as disastrously as cornel culture. About three years ago a man named Josiah Herbert, noting the not altogether successful ostrich farms in California, thought out that the particular disadvantages incident to the phimcgrowing business hero could be overcome in Arizona. He got a number of birds from the San Felice rancho and shipped them to the southwestern Territory. Traveling by rail docs not agree with ostriches, and all but two of them died befoie they reached Herbert #farm. These two. however, with commendable industry, have become tho progenitors of a flock of the ungainly birds that now number; thirty-three. Herbert’s farm is three miles from Phoenix. He has forty acres fenced in for them, and the industry has long since passed the experimental stage. They have a regular pasture. The word pasture is a proper one, for notwithstanding the popular impression that the ostrich thrives on nails, cobblestoues and tomato cans, the fact is that his taste is pretty much the same as that of a pig. He is particularly contented when turned loose in nn alfalfa patch. Indeed, almost anything vegetable does for him, from grasses to cactus leaves. In the dry climate of Arizona ostriches require almost no care and are as easily raised as cattle or sheep. The ostrich business ought to pay. It costs almost nothing to feed them and the full-grown birds are valued at from sooo to SBOO each They grow up in batches of from » dozen to twenty, so it is no wonder that increase is rapid. When an ostrich is five years old he is considered full-grown, and as he lives for a hundred years and gives up two crops of feathers each year it can be seen that an ostrich is a bird worth having.

Ax authentic whale story comes from Grand Munan, in the Bay of Fundv, which rivals any told in the country for years, says the Boston Herald. Two Grand Manan fishermen, Cronk and W inchester, cast their anchor off their boat and threw out their lines in quest of cod. Suddenly their boat began to move through the water, and a whale rose to the surface. The anchor was fastened in his blowhole, and with the boat plowing through the water after him, he started toward the shore, got into shoal water and stranded. Cronk and Winchester killed his whaleship with axes and sdd the carcass for $75. .