Page 3 Advertisements Column 3

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 880, 13 November 1874, Page 3

An old story has just been revised in Victoria. A three hundred guinea ram was taken to a station. Th«? ovine treasure was placed for the night iu a securely enclosed paddock, where no harm could, it was supposed, como to him. In the morning his owner found his skin dangling from the fence. Some wayfarers in want of mutton chops helped themselves to the prize sheep. Ostrich farming (says the Eastern Province Herald, a Cape journal) has already b come an important brancli of agricultural industry, and promises to becomp still more so. A stranger seeing the quantity of " tame " feathers olfered for sale at the municipal market from month to month would scarcely credit that the breeding and rearing of ostriches, as matter of business, dates back only about seven years. Before this a farmer here and there had a few birds on his farm, more as a curiosity than anything else, but-few thought of hatching ostrich eggs, rearing young birds, and attending to them as you would a flock of sheep. About seven years ago, Mr A. Douglass, of Hilton, bought a pair of birds, and subsequently added to them four more, making in all two cocks and four liens. The idea of an incubator then struck him, and after numerous experiments he succeeded in constructing apparatus admirably adapted to tlie purpose required. So admirably adapted, that bv the aid of his incubator Mr Douglass succeeded in rearing from these Bix birds one hundred and thirty young ostriches in one season. Last year the increase from his flock, which had been increased to twenty birds, was one hundred and twenty. When it is remembered that the value of an ostrich a week old is £lO, and that its value increases rapidly as it grows older, it will be at once apparent that the successful pursuit of this industry is a very re* munerative investment of capital