, 1884-04-01
RAIL VERSUS TRAIL.
LSng Cattle Drives to succumb to the
Fast Fleeing Train.

In an interview with that eminent stock
grower of Texas, Colonel Sterling, that
gentleman said:
"A radical change will soon take place
in the mode of handling stock in the
west. About fifteen or eighteen years ago
the people OfTexas who had become over
burdened with cattle commenced driving
them north, first into Kansas and Ne
braska, then into Colorado, then Wyo-
ming, and then finally away up into
Montana and Dakota, until possibly ten
millions have gone in hat direction. This
has relieved Texas, and has stocked up
the northwest. But now a change is
coming. The long and tedious drives
will be dispensed with, and the railroads
will carry the millions of bovines in the
great future
rs there any reason why Texas should
not produce as many cattle in the future
as it has in the past? And if it does,
where will be its future market? And
will the time not come when these north
ern states and territories will be over
stocked?' asked the newspaper man.
Texas will produce as many cattle in
the coming decades as it has in the past"
said the colonel, and its market will be
in the broad expanse extending up through
Colorado to the British posscssions-a
country susceptible of feeding $50, OOO, 900
or $50, 600, 900 of cattle, provided the
breeding is done in the Lone Star State"
What would you say was the cattle
breeding capacity of Texas, provided the
young male animals are shipped north to
be grow and fatted as soon as they are
one and two years of age?"
That is a hard matter to determine.
Texas is a vast country with great posi-
bilities; but | would say it would possibly
produce from 5000, 900 to l0,0 900 of
calves each and every year, provided one
half of them-the steers-were carried
north to mature and make room for the
fast recurring increase. You see, with
us, in Texas, 80 per cent. of the COVE
will raise calves. In your northern
country you cannot rely on more than 10
per cent. A cow at . years of age seldom
fails to reproduce. 1t is right the reverse
in the north"
Wi the northern grasses fatten cattle
as well as do those in Texas? Or, in
other words, do steers grow larger after
being transplanted to the north?''
"A fair, average Texas steer, when fat
and four years of age, if kept on his ma
tive heath, may weighed from !, 100 to
1900 pounds. The same animal, if
driven to Colorado or Wyoming when one
or two years of age, will, when four,
weigh from l,4O0 to LOCO pounds.
Would it not be cheaper to drive
these young cattle, as they have been
heretofore, rather than pay railroad
freight? And will not the old-time
breeders prefer hat way of doing?"
"Oh, no.; this is a progressive age, and
the Texas cattle growers are keeping pace
with it. Time is money the world over.
When a herd of calves can be taken from
the Canadian river to the hills of Wyo-
ming in forty-eight hours at an expense
of possibly 50 per head, it will not pay to
be three months driving them. And hen
they get f~ootsore and poor and 10 per
cent of them die the first winter in their
new home, If they were picked up by
rail in the month of May, and set down
in Colorado or Wyoming before their
stomachs are emptied, they would none of
them die"