Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1883-04-12
THE DODGE CITY TIMES.
WEALTH IN CATTLE.

WEALTH In CATTLE.
From the New York Shipping List.]
It is estimated that the annual cattle sales
in the United States amount to about $3OO,-
100000. This wealth has been greatly in
creased by the large augmentation OF
thoroughbred cattle. The American Herd
Book has been extended to twenty-shree
volumes. These volumes are occupied with
the record and pedigree of 10000 COWS and
47,0OO bulls, and all of one class, VIZ:
uurhams or Shorthorns. The best beef
which finds its way to market is that OF
graded Durham cattle. The Agricultural
Review makes this comment: One not
intimate with the subject might suppose that
with such an array in numbers of our short
horns the prices of them would gradually
diminish at both the public and private
sales, now 80 frequent and in such large
numbers in our States. Such, however, is
not the fact; average sales are now equal in
price at which they have ever been. During
the last five years the public sales have
annually averaged 5000 animals-bulls.
COWS and hei:ers-at an average price OF $l62
per head, while probably an equal number
have been sold at private sales and at some
what higher prices. Many of them have
sold for 1000 and up to even SIC, 900 each,
so esteemed for pedigree and quality are
they by our enterprising breeders. Much
higher prices, indeed, have been obtained in
some past years, even as high as $25,OOO
and upward for single animals from eminent
English breeders, who have come here alter
them; but that was in time of high excite
ment in shorthorn rivalry, and need be noted
only as one of the extraordinary fluctuations
in their progress. The unfamiliar reader
may ask, Where is the great demand for
these cattle? Where is the market for the
several thousand bulls annually produced?
The question is readily answered.: Untold
herds of cattle by hundreds of Thousands
roam over the broad ranches of Texas, New
Mexico, Colorado and California, OF the
descendants of the original Spanish Imports
tons into Mexico from Spain in the sixteenth
century. Ranging over the vast plains and
pampas of that mild climate, they increased
multitudinously. Texas became full of them
New Mexico also; and since the incorpora-
ton of these countries with ours, uncouth
and ragged as they were in their wild condi-
ton. tsose cattle have been brought under
the subjec'ion of civilized stockmen, ar
ranged into herds, branded with the marks
of their owners, and at marketable age
driven through the Indian Territory into
Kansas. and thence to Missouri and Chicago
markets, either for immediate slaughter, as
their conditions would afford, or sold to the
praziers and feeders fox better market
Eastward. These Wild cattle are unfit for
choice beef, but the cows, crossed on their
ranches by shorthorn bulls, produce tolera-
bly, good steers, partaking strongly of the
blood and forms of their sires, and become
marketable animals, with good pasturags
and grain topping-of in the hands OF the
corn-growing graziers who purchase them.
The grading up of cattle in the West and
Southwest has been going on rapidly within
the last ten years. 1t would be difficult to
decide whether Illinois or Kentucky is the
center of the shorthorn breeding interests in
this country. The center, wherever it may
he. ia a movable one. The Texan steer,
that is, the original long-horned, half.wild
animal is fast disappearing. Droves of these
cattle are now rarely seen. They have been
displaced by better ones.
Tho Scientific American SAWS It is report.