ELEPHANTS AT PLOUGH.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9408, 31 March 1909, Page 3

ELEPHANTS AT PLOUGH.

CAMELS CHAFF-CUTTING. Three miles from Horley, in Surrey, the remarkable sight ol elephants ploughing a fifty-acre fields, and doing it extremely well, lias lately been daily witnessed. /Nor is this the only unusual sight to be seen there, for close by camels—real camels—are frequently hard at work cutting chaff. A representative of the Daily Mail visited Bnrstow where the animals. which“are the property of “Sanger’s Circus,” hibernate for four months on the 400 acre farm of Mr John Sanger. In bright sunshine, though the ground was white with frost at midday and all exposed water was covered with ice, Tiny, whose chief claim to her name appears to rest on the fact that she is far the largest of the four elephants at Burstow Lodge, ploughed her lonely furrows merrily, her particular friend, Annie, looking on and encouraging her at intervals with jovial snorts. Annie can turn a good furrow, but she is a beginner, being only about sixty years of age, while Tiny is seventy or eighty at least. Annie was led out a lew mornings ago alone to the fields, but resented the “new-fangled notion,” as she regarded the plough, and trumpeted furiously. She further showed a disposition to sit on the plough, which would have done her hide no good and certainly spoiled a useful agricultural implement. So she returned to the farm, and was ordered to clasp the tail of Tiny with her trunk. Then, in dignified procession, the two elephants marched to the fields, and Annie was yoked to the plough, Tiny standing by to encourage her. She did very well, considering. Afterwards Tiny took her place, and showed what a really smart and experienced elephant could do. The plough slid through the heavy soil as if it were slicing butter. There are two other elephants in the social circle at Bnrstow Lodge. Their names are Bose and Ida. They are eager to learn to”plough, neither of them much over fifty, and there is plenty of time. Bach of the lour elephants eats a hundredweight or two of hay daily. If they have a long march or heavy duty in the fields before them they are given tun quartern; loaves ;of bread apiece for breakfast, as an extra tit-bijs. Altogether the animals at Bnrstow Lodge consume considerably over two tons of chaff daily, besides hay that has not been out, and the chaff - ontting is almost entirely done by camels.

An elderly “oont” named M’Qee is the foreman, and bis “mate,” as a rule, is Sammy, a juvenile dromedary, who takes a very great delight in his work, and fills the bumps of all the other camels and dromedaries with bitter jealousy.| On this unique farm there are 150 cirous horses and' a complete menagerie, including lions, tigers, wolves, hyenas and monkeys.