The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1884-03-20
LAND AND LABOR.

county sold car load of mares to
party in Illinois for $50 and S2o a
head.
Yearling steers are selling at f-om
81 to S12, and two year ODDS at from
S14 to $3.50.
The largest2fed beef ever sold from
Texas is said to have been sold to a
New Orleans butcher by Calvin
Wright. 1t was raised on the Nueces,
and weighed something over 2oOe
pounds.
Hugh e'Rilley purchased 1924 acres
OF land, fenced, in Bee county. for
$685., or 1915 an acre, from Fnc.e
John Wilson, and Geoige Stern 1886
acres f5r $500. The purchases were
made few days ago and the prices
paid are considered very low, as the
land is extra good.
A prominent stockman, says the
Live Stock Journal, concludes that it
will not pay to give the state 20 cents
for the rent Of lands having river
fronts. Most of these lands are SO
poor that it would take two sections
to carry 100 head of cattle. Our i'm
ported statesman, he thinks, also,
should post themselves before they
make so many wild and senseless
breaks. The wild lands now along
western streams are generally worth
nothing and the water is unapproach-
able.
JIM. Daugherty, of Abilene, has sold
large range of cattle to the George
town, Kentucky, Cattle company, at
$22 per head, range. delivery.
MIR. Tom Gunner has bought Mr.. J.
N. Mathis Sharpsburg ranch and fe-
male cattle, that is all his cows and
two-year-old heifers, cows at twenty
five and heifers at seventeen dollars
head. There will be some three thou
sand head, and thirty-tWo thousand
acres OF land, all enclosed. Price paid
onehundred and seventy-fve thousand
dollars.
A correspondent writes the Live
Stock Journal from Nolan county
that stockmen and citizens there gen
orally condemn the arbitrary action of
the land board in their recent. ruling
raising the lease of school lands from
to cents, az a piece of political dem
ogoguism, which was intended as a
bid for the granger vote as antagonis-
tic to the stock interests.
The Texas Live Stock Journal has
this to say concerning the action of
the land board:
There is hardly body of land any
western ranchman controls that is not
depended on obtaining lands inter-
vening, If bought from the state, or
from railroads, the sections alternate
and it is practically impossible to OBJ
tain block of land sufficient for Or
binary ranching purposes, without
difficulties being thrown in the way by
the law, or by the land board, The
price that wealthy man cannot pay
for d section, is price poorer man
cannot pay. The result is, no lease
money goes to the state, and stock run
at large, as the law permits, and ranch
men preferring tablished lines, will
ing to pay what is just and right to
secure permanency TO their business
are. condemned to vagrancy against
| their will.
A disease has appeared among cat
tie in Eastern Kansas similar to the
dreaded foot and mouth disease. Gov
ernor Click has had the infected dis
tricts quarantined.
| Lease or leave is what the action of
the land board means for stockmen,
and they think it mean.
A veteran cOWman, writing to the
Texas Live Stock Journal from Bay
lor county, has this to say of the eff
fects of the recent action of the land
board:
We are very much perplexed in
this western country over the condi-
ton of our land matters. 1t seems
that the called session of the legislat-
ure enacted law that was rather in
convenient for us at the beginning,
but we know that it was to meet a
great emergency and readily and even
gladly submitted to it. 1t demanded
of us that we should either lease OF
buy all the state, school or other public
lands that we enclosed or herded our
stock upon. This we were perfectly
willing to do for it is nothing but
right that those that own stock should
own the land they Craze upon and pay
taxes on it just like the farmer has to
do on his farm, but the land board, it
seems, overrides the law, taking some
land off the market, raising the lease
on others or in fact, have made so
many changes that we don't know
what they do require. When Wo go
to our surveyor, he can only point us
to the different Instructions he has
received, which he has posted up in
his office. Numbers of our new men
that have come to the west lately to
find bones for themselves or small
tracts of land to put few stock on
have left in disgust, saying they would
| go back and rent until land matters
assumed a more favorable shape.
Small men, or men with small punches
of stock, have to keep them together,
while men that have hundreds of
horses and hands can sweep over a
vast territory of country, gather and
bring home their stock, that they can
turn loose on even a small tract of
land or their own in different parts of
their range, and in this way comply
with the law. But small stocks can't
do this; theirs must all be kept to-
gether, fol they can't reach out so far
to bring them back.
TEXAS SUGAR LANDS.
the sugar lands proper of Texas
| embrace strip of territory about
one hundred miles long, averaging ten
miles in width on the Rio Grande
Wind mills suffice for the necessary
irrigation, at comparatively small ex-
pense. A Mr.. Bronlay who, says the
Farm and Ranch, recently established
sugar plantation near Brownsville,
made clear profit of $4,000 in one
year from two hundred acres after
deducting, in addition to the ordinary
expenses of production. the interest
on machinery,
SHEEP PAsTURING.
A writer in the Farm and Ranch
speaking of the tendency to run sheep
in too large numbers, says:
"The flock-master should be careful
not to pasture too many sheep in one
pasture, unless he wishes to pay dear
ly for the experiment. 1t has been
tried in Buenos Ayres. 1. myself,
have tried it, and under more favora-
BILE circumstances than is possible in
this country. Imean by more favora-
bic circumstances, open prairie with
out brush, or very little, and plenty of
clear, running water; the neighbors
all fenced and peaceable, md no coy
otes. Even with all this, it was not
found practicable to run more than
five to six thousand, and even this
number was considered to many, ex--
cept during the winter months. Sheep
are animals that require and will re-
pay all the care bestowed upon them;
and, in proportion, the more care, the
greater the profits. The tanner, also,
the sheep are, the better the results.
At lambing time. the smaller the
f1ocks or punches, the greater the in
crease.
GRAPE CULTURE.
A correspondent of the Farm and |
Ranch writes.