Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1873-08-23
Cattle in Texas.


HOW the Animals arc ttatseu ana Herded
Correspondence with the United
States Department of Agriculture gives
the following incidents relating to the
Texas cattle trade:
The prevalent custom, to which there
is scarcely an exception, is to let herds
run at large the year round, without any
feeding. Hence, besides taxes and in
terest on the amount invested in the
herd, the only expenses are for herds
men and their equipments, for addi-
tional help in branding and marking,
and for marketing. In herding, advan-
tage is sometimes taken of the princi-
pie of cooperation. Our correspondent
in Cooke county states the leading facts
of cattle-raising in Texas thus:
The cost of raising cattle in this
county is the interest on the money in
vested, (and the cost of stock is COM
monty six dollars per head from year
lings up J the tax on the value of the
stock, and the cost of the hands and
horses to attend them about five months
of the year. One hand and four horses
ale required to the thousand head.
Several stock-raisers operate in con-
nection hire man to drive the pro-
vision wagon and cook for the hands
and by thus throwing their forces to-
gether it does not require SO many men
and horses as it would were each stock
raiser to operate alone. Hands can be
hired at from SIS to $40 per month.
The horses employed are range-horses,
and they subsist on the grass. They
will gather up their cows, calves, and
beeves, drive them to the most conve-
nient rancho, pen them, mark and
brand the calves, let the COWS and calves
go, but hold the herd of beeves. A
"ranche" here is any farmhouse, or
even cabin on the prairie, with an in
closure used for penning cattle. Stock
raisers in Cooke, for instance, will hunt
their cattle in Denton, Tarrant, Wise,
Montague, and Grayson. They gather
up, mark, and brand, from time to
time, and turn loose. All stock cattle
and horses must make their own living
on the range. Cattle receive no atten-
tion from the owner, save that of mark
ing, branding, and gathering for sale.
Steers are generally thrown upon the
market at four years old : but in any
lot of cattle gathered as beef cattle you
will find more or less from five to seven
years old, which are always in better
condition than the four -year-old ones,
and stand driving better. Barren COWS
are sold at from four years old, upward.
Owing to the high price of corn, cattle,
beyond very insignificant number, are
not fed for the market. Those who
make it business drive their cattle to
Missouri, or farther north, where corn,
&c, can be purchased at comparatively
low rates.
This correspondent states that lead
ing stock raiser, who had kept strict
record for seven or eight years, found
that, in from 600 to 1000 calves annu-
ally branded, the difference between the
males and the females never exceeded
twenty. He further reports that Texas
cattle are evidently deteriorating that
that they do not attain to the same size
at the same age they once did, and mot
nearly so many heifers become mothers
at two years old as formerly, when the
range was much better" He estimates
that at present the number of calves
found for branding in the spring is one
fourth of the number of the whole herd I;
but some few years ago, cattle prop
erly attended to would double their
number in three years." The profits,
formerly thirty-three per cent, are now
assumed to be only twenty live per cent.
When calves are q few weeks or
months old they are branded and turned
loose, and perhaps never seen again by
the owner until driven up to be sold or
butchered, or to secure the calf by
branding. No one in our country pre-
tends to herd his stock, except when
they are brought together to be sent to
market. The increase is about all profit,
there being almost no expense incurred
in feeding or wintering. Cattle sup
port themselves upon the natural grass
es, and the only care exercised is by
experimenting herdsmen, whose force
is doubled in the spring at marking and
branding time. Stock-men have lost
seriously this winter, and the profit in
raising is reduced to about twenty-five
per cent. Cattle are permitted to run
at large upon the prairies, and are only
collected in herds at the nearest pens
at branding time. No feeding in win
ter. No feeding iu winter. Hands are
hired at 800 per month to brand and
mark. The actual cost of raising, or
rather permitting male calf to raise
itself to be "four-year-old beef, " is
literally nothing, except the marking
and branding of the calf, and the inter
est on the capital in the mother-cow.
The cost of branding and marking
ranges from twenty-five to fifty cents
per head, never more. Four-year-old
j