New Ulm weekly review., 1883-11-14
Cattle Ranchinq in South America.

Cattle Ranching in South America.
The native rancheros of South Amer
lea are, as a rule, an amiable and quiet
race, whether creole or half breed;
their wants are few, their tastes simple,
and their vices Insignificant. They
breed vast families of children and are
indulgent, though somewhat whimsical
they may be in their focks, they are
generally poor in purse, for they kill or
sell their stock only to meet their needs.
A man on the South American plains is
said to be worth not so much money
but so many head of cattle, and it is
his pride to add to the count.
He keeps a regular census of his
herds by perforated boards into which
pegs are stuck. Some ranches have
their walls almost covered with these
boards, and the master will keep peg
ging them up as if he was engaged in
a game of cribbage with nature, and
constantly winning. AS rule each
peg represents a single animal. We
only found one rancho where the count
was kept with pegs for the thousands,
the hundreds, and single heads. This
ranchero had spent some years in Trim
idad in his youth, and was regarded by
all who knew him as an exceptionally
advanced and brilliant man; yet he
could only write his name in printed
letters, and could not read written let
ters at all.
There are, of course, upon the plains
men who breed cattle with some intelli-
gence and energy. These are educated
natives or foreigners. With them the
business is scientifically pursued; they
have their regular slaughtering seasons
and make all they can by the trade.
Their houses, though constructed on
the general plan of all tropical or sub
tropical dwellings, are paved and
foored, kept cleanly, and filled with
comforts. Their owners live on the
best they can raise and buy, and keep
their motley armies of followers as
protitably busy as they can be kept. In
short, intelligence and the energy born
of intelligence, raise the standard of
this class of cattle ranching to the best
level of which it is capable: But men
who form this class are exceptions to
the great rule. For one man who keeps
books there are hundreds who use the
numbering boards; for one man who
tries to breed his cattle at their best, to
utilize their products in every form and
to enjoy their uses after the fashion of
civilization, there are thousands who
have no aspirations above that of living
with as little work as possible, and
using their wealth only to satisfy the
rudest demands which nature makes on
them.
Beside the house is always found an
extensive corral, or pen, walled in with
strong posts. Here the cattle to be
slaughtered and those kept in the
neighborhood of the rancho are con-
fined. In front of the corral is the
slaughtering place. This is simply
couple of posts to which the doomed
bovine is hauled up by the hinder legs
to have its throat cut. You can scent
slaughtering place before you see a
rancho. At killing time you can further
distinguish it at a distance by the buz-
yards lowering overhead. The buz-
yards dispute with the dogs for the offal
of the butchery, and they always make
rousing fights over it between them.
At slaughtering seasons, sort of
mushroom growth of flimsy frames,
constructed out of poles, tied together
with thongs of rawhide, rises around
the rancho. 1t is here that the beef is
dried or 'jerked. After the animal
has been slaughtered, the hide is pegged
out on the grass to dry, q wooden peg
being driven through each corner of the
hide to keep it from shrinking. The
meat is then cut into strips; salt is we'll
rubbed into it and it is thrown upon the
frames to dry in the sun, the old folks
and children of the rancho being kept
busy driving the buzzards from it.
When it is dry, jerked beef is as black
and tough as rubber. 1t can be boiled
sufficiently soft to eat, but it is serious
eating at the best.
The horns were formerly dead loss
to the rancher, but of late years they,
too, are preserved for sale. The skulls
and bones are left where they may hap
pen to fall, unless the rahchero is par
ticularly methodical. Then they are
placed into heap out of the way, until
in time they become mountainous
monument to the business of the place.
There are to be found perfect mounds
of this kind, which, in the course of
years, become covered with deposit
of earth, and dressed in grass until
their original character can only be dis
covered by digging into them. In one
section of Venezuela, an entire lake has
been filled up with bones from the sur
rounding ranches, and is now a dry
basin sown with cleaning skeletons,
the aspect of which is indescribably
hideous to every one but those who are
native, and to the manor born.-Alfred
I1"una6le, IN american Agriculturisf for
November.