Untitled

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 54, 6 March 1915, Page 6

It is pointed out by a writer in the “African World” annual that owing to the war there is a net annual loss of three million pounds to the ostrich industry in South Africa. Never in the whole of the fifty years of its history has ostrich farming suffered such a collapse, and presented such a black outlook for the future. With the close of the war, the diamond industry will he in a position to recommence operations and regulate its output as before. But the conditions are vastly different as regards the feather industry. The ostrich fanner cannot suspend the production of his plumes. Feathers are accumulating all the time, even though he cannot dispose of them. Unless lie liberates or destroys the birds, thee rop ripens and inust bo clipped. There need, how-

ever, bo no fear of the ultimate return of the ostrich industry to its former pre-eminence in agricultural South Africa. An industry which has been gradually growing during a period of about eighty years, .beginning with the plumes of the wind bird, is not going wholly to disappear. It represents a genuine and increasing need in the world of fashion under normal conditioins, even though for the time being the farmer has to adapt himself, to a particular set of circumstances which is affecting him disastrously.