THE CATTLE COUNTRY

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 30, 12 April 1907, Page 6

THE CATTLE COUNTRY

Interesting Phases of the Struggle for New Territory. L,titKft by Stories of Sadden Riches, ffiteß Have Flocked In from All - Starts of tho World— Odd f ” : Incident*.; ' ! $ F 0? ten years, more or less, gay from 1874 to 1884, and later than this in the northern range, there was universal prosperity and plenty of money; to be a cowman meant being a small, but powerful king with a princely, kingdom, the boundaries of which were set by precedent and by the honor of custom—as far as a man on horseback could see, and by water—as firmly asif corner-marked and title-deeded. There was no’, rent, and virtually no taxes to pay. Si man might own a hundred thousand, cattle, and not an acre qf land, though he claimed “range rights” to 50,000 acres, and enforced those , rights with blood and iron, writes Bay Stannard Baker, in Century, ■ ' Apparently this was a new sort of freeHife in which man had risen above the old slow rules of thrift. It was a • simple business; turn the cattle to grass, and when money was needed, round them up and sell them. But the lucky dog sometimes had difficulty in enjoying his bone in peace. Lured by the stories of sudden riches in the cattle country, other men, as bold and bardy as the first, flocked in from all parts of the world, and began, and littlelierds'. The building of the railroads across the cofitlnent stimulated immigration; * the great Texas boom followed the com* pletion of the Texas Pacific railroad in 1883.: At first the early comers welcomed the new rangers, sold: thorn caO tie at exorbitant prices, chuckled at their innocence, allowed them to come in on the ranges, and grew richef and richer. There were times when Texas steers, big and little, brought $25 each on the range. But the tide swelled, and the cattle continued to increase enormously. Presently the first real settlers, the “nesters” of Texas, who wished to fence the land for farms, appeared in numbers, and the early comers, the original cowboys, began to chafe. “Who’s elbowing me?” they inquired, and there was prompt and effective shooting, and the wholesale cutting of the new fences. , Many good men lay down in the hot sand, never to rise again. But that, bad as it was, did not tell the whole story 1 of destruction. If cattle had been killed instead of men, the trouble might have been averted, but the herds went on multiplying until they covered all the range, giving it no rest winter or summer.: Each cowman scrambled for all he could get; he argued that if he did not take the grass his neighbor would. And who oared a rap for the future? Life was short and money tangible. At first there Had been enough grass to support one steer to every two acres of land; in 1ml? a dozen years o Steer did well to make his living on, five acres. After that the ratio steadily widened. So great was tho struggle for new territory that whole lierds of cattle sometimes went 20 miles or more to water and then back igain, galloping every step, and working hard between times to get enough from the failing ranges to keep life within their lean carcasses. And inlay there are many parts of the range hat will not support ten cattle to the quarc mile, one steer to every 64'acrefi* ml it is a good range indeed that will bed a steer to every 20 acres. There ne whole ranges, in Texas, New Mexra and Arizona, once rich beyond beief, that are completely deserted and given over to the desert. ■ , Substituted lor Panama Haiti). Panama straw hats are tyffhly mshiomible in Japan, though on ac■ovntv.of the price, which is much igher than that of the ordinary I raw hats, they are bought only by 1 c rich or the fashionable. This i’staclc may be removed if, as re••vied in an Osaka paper, the subLi tutes for the Panama straw found n middle Formosa are really adapti! for the purpose. The substitutes re said to bo the fibers of the eaves of a certain tropical tree of ■ery rapid growth. Six fibers can >e obtained from each leaf, which is bout four inches wide and four feet ong, and It is said that the cost of ft,ooo fillers is about six yen. A ceriin foreign firm of Yokohama is aid to have already given a large -rder for the fibers, and the Panama i;;ts made with this new material nay therefore appear on the marbet this summer. If the new fibers ire really suited for headgear Formosa may lie said to have hit upon a new resource.—Japan Weekly Times. Chanced for a Divorce, understand young Simians and his wife are not living happily together. .*«' fi i . She—What seems to be the trouble? “Incompatibility of temper,” “Which is at fault?” “Both. He furnishes the incompatibility and she supplies the temper.”— Chicago Daily News. ( Her Martyrdom. * Sylvia—l’m surprised to hear that Isabel married young Dashington after declaring that he wasn’t good enough for her. Phyllis—Yes, but later she declared that be was too good for any other girl, so she married him out of sheer sympathy.—Chicago Daily News. Doth In mid Out. Borroughs—ls Mr. Lenders in? Office Boy (who has been “posted”) —Np ; he's out. “Well, just run in ami tell him he’s out. more than lie thought, 1 came to return S3O I borrowed last week. Good day.”—Philadelphia Press.