LARGE STOCKS & PASTURES.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 91, 1 September 1877, Page 3

LARGE STOCKS & PASTURES.

The " New York Times " says .— A_ recent letter thus speaks : — " In Texas I notice much more attention of late is given to private pastures. In four years past at least half of many counties west of San Antonio River have been enclosed m immense pastures by post and plank fences. All pastures and no corn. Then the small stock men are growing smaller • and fewer, while large stocks are growing much larger. Few of" your readers have any idea of the extent to which a single man or firm will carry this business. Eor their wonderment I will give a few stocks and pastures which I have seen, with names and figures. M Allan & Son, east of the Brazos, have 40^000 acres inclosed, 50,000 head pf cattle, and ship annually, including purchases, about 20,000 beeyes. Foster Dyer, west of the Brazos, has 12,000 acres inclosed, and 40,000 head of cattle. He bought of one party last spring 3,000 three-year-old heifers at 9dols. m gold each. Caruthers and- Bros, north of-Austin, have 60,000 cattle on the plains. , O'Brien, on the Guadaloupe, has 35,000 cattle; Mr Lowe, w;est of' Sau. Antonio River, has 40,000 acres m pasturage,, and 120,000 head of cattle. A , widow farther West <has 140,000 cattle on the plains, and sells annually 15,000' beeves. Mathews, Coleman, and. Mathews, Rockport, Texas, have 200,000 acres of pasture, and 130,000 cattle; they ship annually, including purchases, thirty thousand six. hundred and thirty-five beeves. Duvuse and Ellison, San Antonio, drove last spring to Kansas sixty-six, thousand cattle, and mu_t have at least double -that number on the plains. Mr King, west of the Nueces^ River drove to Kansas thirty -three thousand beeyes t from his own branch, and sold at 33d015. per head ; he has-two-hundred thousand acres of pasture, one-hundred and sixty thousand cattle, and ten "thousand horses and mules.' Mr M. Kennedy, his next "neighbor, has one-hundred and ninty thousand acres of pasture, eight thousand horses and mules, and onehundred and thirty thousand cattle. There are many others, whose stocks are as large, that I have-not seen, to say nothing^of the ten thousand to thirty thousand stocks,- but this will suffice. This seems incredible to an- eastern, or even a north-western man, and yet m round numbers is very nearly 'correct. And still there is "a very large diminution of the cattle on the plains m five years | past. I will give you one of the i many instances to snow the^hnmense profits of this business, when they can graze all the year round. I withhold the names, as it is not my, province to make public the details of any man's private business. Four years ago, certain friends of mine i discussed the if pasturage question, ' and began to buy and fence m cheap lands. They have now two-hundered and fifty thousand acres of pasturage, are systematic m their business,' and opened a stock cattle account, separate from beef account,debiteditwith all purchases of stock cattle, all ages, and' credited it with all sales from said stocks at the prices ruling

there. The account shows now four-hundred and ten thousand dols. paid out m four years for stock cattle of all ages, and five-hundred and twenty thousand dols. sale for said stocks, with one-hundred and ten thou sand cattle on hand, worth 6 dols. per head, or six-hundred thousand dols., and the account out of debt, making seven -hundred and seventy thousand dols. profit m four years,, and perhaps did .not use over thirty-five- hundred thousand dols. cash m these p ureases, Spme.pthers have done as well, or even better, on a smaller scale. T;he wool growers are .equally^ as well ..satisfied with their business m the past, though wool is declining, while cattle are growing' scarcer and higher every year for people will eat, and the vast, grazing plains are being gradually, hut surely, taken up by small farmers enugratmg to the south-west.