CANADA'S CATTLE KING

Shannon News, 6 July 1928, Page 4

CANADA'S CATTLE KING

SALE OF BIG BUSINESS.

STORY OF ROMANTIC LIFE

."The biggest man, heart, soul, and bank account ‘from Winnipeg to tiic Pacific,” is the description given of Mr Pat Bums, of Calgary, whose meat packing plants ami produce stores, located in every centre of size in Western Canada, have been sold to the Dominion Securities Corporation, Toronto, for £3,000,000. /ffiie vendor has accepted the presidency of the new corporation. Mr Burns is the last cuttle king of the West. He hails frqni a district that breeds big men. At Kirkfield, Ontario, Mackenzie, Mann and Ross .veto born. Pat made his first cattle deal when he was 11, and turned in a profit to his father, who had a small farm. . With the opening of the West, Pat turned his eyes toward Manitoba, and settled on a quarter section of 1(50 acres. Mr Mackenzie came along, laying the Canadian Northern, and drove a stake in Pat’s farm, to call it a station, Pat went further west and commenced liirf life’s vocation of cattle dealer.

In those days, the early eighties, cattle roamed at will over thousands of square miles, and the fall round-up was the only means of separating the brands. Pat rode the ranges with his punchers, and was known as a hard rider. They tell a story in Calgary, famous for its cattle stampedes, where Pat makes his headquarters, of how his horse stepped m- a gopher hole and threw him, breaking both wrists. Pat .cught his horse and' rode 18 miles to a doctor.

Mr Burns missed getting an education, and he recently stated at an undergraduates’'•banquet that they have something tliaf came.too late for him to acquire. But what he lost in book learning ho made "up with a keen intellect and a finely-balanced business judgment. Two things he can judge better than anyone else in the West--a good steer and an honest man. Spot cash on .the hoof has been his slogan th roughout. In London, Liverpool and Yokohama rae representative agencies of Mr Burns’ businesses of meat packing, produce stores, wholesale groceries and creameries,' which number 94 establishments. He followed the lines of steel westward, and brought with him his confidence in the new country. His, vast operations to-flay comniemor ate that confidence, and are a big •*:- tor in providing for the Western farmer the widest available market for liis cattle, hogs, sheep, poultry, eggs and cream. Unlike Kidman, the cattle king of Australia, Burns extended his operations until they embraced all the rancher’s side-lines, in each of which he was himself a practical specialist.