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It took nearly a year to get the first block of stone quarried and mounted on the huge lathe. The work went on most successfully. The stone was turned to a true cylindrical shape and then polished, the machine running night and day. A few hours more would have seen the great cylinder complete.

All at once it broke in two, with such a tremendous shock as to sever eight steel hook bolts, two inches thick, which held the tailstock of the lathe down to the bed, and then fell to the ground completely ruined and useless. The whole value of the practically finished pillar-$25,000had been lost in a moment.

Without delay the company began quarrying another block. It was detached from the ledge, transported to the

no pillar of the length and thickness required could stand the strain of cutting and polishing, no matter how carefully and skillfully the work might be done. This fact being fully established, a modification of the contract was effected, by which the pillars were to be constructed in two pieces instead of one; and, under this arrangement, the eight columns were. finished in the form they now have. They had cost five years of labor and large sums of money, both in themselves and in the attempts to make them monoliths. They have been set up in a semi-circle in the cathedral, around what will be the interior of the apse or rounded rear part of the cathedral, the cathedral, where in the natural course of things they may be expected to stand for ages.

Ostrich Farming in America

B

By E. H. Rydall

LACK EYES and a picture hat form one of the most bewitching combinations within woman's dominion of charms, according to Professor Cumnock, of Northwestern University, an authority on feminine attractiveness. The next most enticing sight that man's eyes can gaze on, perhaps, is blue eyes and a picture hat. But black eyes have not always been able to afford the picture hat, and neither have the blue eyes; for picture hats, those of the really magnificent kind-the imitations look worse than none at all-cost large sums of money. Without splendid plumes there can hardly be a real "picture hat; without ostrich feathers there can be no splendid plumes; without ostriches there can be no ostrich feathers. Until recently the ostriches from which the plumes were plucked for market lived in far-away Africa, and it was the duty on the feathers and the large cost of importation that made them cost so much.

Now, however, the conditions are about to change. In fact, it may be said that they have already changed. Soon every pair of feminine eyes, black or blue, may emit their light from the shades of the picture hat. Let all American women rejoice that a new industry has sprung up in America-an industry that is to make them independent of the native African ostrich. Carloads of the most resplendent plumes have recently been put on the market by owners of American ostrich farms. The new industry, at first

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tried as an experiment, has proved itself to be enormously profitable, and firms are engaging in it in many sections of the country. At first it was supposed that the plume-bearing ostrich could not be bred profitably in any land but Africa, and under this long-accepted supposition: the London ostrich-plume broker has amassed great fortunes.

Ostrich Readily Americanized

But now the African ostrich has become acclimated in the United States, and we find it in Florida, North Carolina, Arkansas, Texas, Arizona, and California, and chiefly in the last-named State, where a dozen ostrich farms are in full operation. In 1854 some French officers near Algiers, in Africa, experimented on the young of wild ostriches, corralling them in an enclosure and car

RIDING ON AN OSTRICH'S BACK.

ing for them until they arrived at mature age. The result was the domesticated ostrich, which the British took advantage of, establishing an industry that is still enriching the London. dealers and the ostrich farmers of the Cape.

Edwin Cawston, the original ostrich pioneer in this country, the first man that made a success of the ostrich feather business in America, conducts an trich farm at Pasadena, California; another at Whittier in the same State; and one at Nice, on the border of France and Italy, to which place he has sent a collection of California ostriches to be exhibited to the four hundred thousand aristocrats that daily fre

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quent the famous watering place. This man has not only endowed the American Republic with the African ostrich, but within about twenty years has built up an immense fortune by the development of the California industry.

The ostrich is a multiplier. Twice a year the hen begins to deposit eggs in large holes in the ground, continuing the practice every other day for about forty days. The first fifteen eggs are generally fertile, but the rest are of no account, and are blown and then sold to tourists as souvenirs.

Golden State. It is attractive in appearance in its infant stages and when arrived at adult age; but during the intervening time, some three years, it is not at all beautiful, being ragged and disreputable looking, resembling very much the emu.

It is for the feather alone that the ostrich is cultivated in Africa. The American ostrich farmers are now making fortunes by exhibiting the birds to inquisitive tourists. At Jacksonville, Little Rock, and Los Angeles, all Southern watering places, ostrich farms are

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GROUP OF YOUNG OSTRICHES ON OSTRICH FARM AT PASADENA, CALIFORNIA.

Six weeks after the deposit of the egg in the nest, the little ostrich appears. It is fed on green alfalfa, ever blooming in California, some eight crops of this fodder being raised there every year.

Stones and Sand are Its Milk The first meal of the baby ostrich consists of small stones and sand. Thereafter it never ceases to devour the soft green grass, and nothing else is fed it until it is about five months old. The growth of the young bird is wonderfully rapid. In six months it is six feet high. At all ages this peculiar biped is an object of interest to the procession of tourists ever wending their way through the

established. The Pasadena ostrich farm derives some ten thousand dollars annually from this source of revenue alone. Every eight months the magnificent feathers are developed on the big bird. If they were not cut off, they would be shed. The cutting is painless to the ostrich and profitable to the management, for these occasions are duly advertised and many people pay admission to witness the operation.

Clipping the Feathers

The ostriches are first blindfolded, and then led into a narrow paddock furnished with a wicket gate. A man attends to hold the birds in position while the

feather-executioner clips off their beautiful plumes. These are sorted according to size, and are then sent to the factory, where a regiment of women so doctor them that they finally appear as the long, continuous-drooping, feathery adorn

ments that are the admiration of womankind. The natural feather of the ostrich is quite a threadbare production. Several of them are required to make up the magnificent plume worn by the Knight Templar, or reposing upon the Gainsborough hat of the millinery world.

After the ostriches have been shorn of their plumage they are led to the wicket gate, where a collection of boys await the opportunity of mounting them. The hood is then taken off, and the frightened creature starts for its confederates in the distant corral: the ludicrous sight of boys and sometimes men clinging to the back of the ostriches affords much amusement to the assembled crowd. Generally in less than a hundred yards, the rider falls to the ground.

The American ostrich population now amounts to some 2,000 birds; that of Africa, to 400,000.

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Millions in It

Fortunes will be made in the years to come in this new industry, for the American millinery market demands at this writing some $2,000,000 worth of ostrich

PLUCKING OSTRICH FEATHERS.

One man holds the bird while an expert clips the long plumes

feathers every year. One California ostrich farmer has been so successful in placing his products before the notice of American women, by advertisement in the leading domestic magazines, that an immense trade is resulting. Feathers are shipped by mail and express all over the land. The entire output for years to come of all the California ostrich farms has been contracted for in this manner.

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Making Rustic Furniture

By A. Parker

UT-OF-DOOR furniture adds a charm to the summer home that nothing else will give, and the making of it is more delightful even than the using of it. A boy or a man with a little mechanical genius can make his home beautiful with varied unique designs of his own. conception. Never hire

a man to

Some attractive designs of rustic furniture are shown in the accompanying illustrations. Figure 2 is self-explanatory, performing the combined service of a vine support and rustic seat. Such seats are frequently used in the adornment of lawns and grounds, and are very attractive. Fig. 1 is a writing desk. It is easily constructed when two trees can be found standing about six or seven feet apart. A board, reinforced underneath with cleats, is fitted between the trunks at the proper height and angle for a swivel chair, to turn on top of a post driven into the ground. A heavy bolt welded to the iron plate on the bottom of the seat, may be dropped

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FIG. 1. RUSTIC WRITING DESK.

build your rustic seats and tables and swings. Do it yourself, and you will enjoy the task, and take a greater pleasure in the finished work.

In making rustic furniture, it should be remembered that the tree limbs, since they must be joined together to produce an artistic effect, will not usually make a substantial structure; and so the framework of the chair or bench or stand should first be made of regular milled and surfaced lumber, the limbs being afterwards placed about it merely as ornamentation. The framed parts, comprising the structure of strength, should be previously treated with white lead or coal tar. Broad surfaces should not be brought into close contact, as they will absorb and retain moisture.

FIG. 2. RUSTIC SEAT. End may serve as a lattice for vines

or creepers.

into the hole in the post, having several wrought-iron washers to facilitate turning. A rest for the feet is placed between the trees at a proper height underneath.

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