The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1886-05-14
BILL NYE ON THE COW INDUSTRY
A Cowboy College Needed to Educate
Young Men to This Profession.


Young Men to This Profession.
No one can go through the wide territory
of Montana to-day without being strongly
impressed with the wonderful growth of the
great sattle growing and grazing industry
OF that terri DRY. And yet Montana is but
the northern extremity of the great
grazing belt which lies at the foot of the
Rocky mountains, extending from the British
possessions on the north to the Mexican bor-
der ON the south, extending eastward. too, as
far as the arabic lands of Dakota, Nebraska
and Kansas.
Montana, at this season of the year. is the
paradise of the sleek, high-headed, 2-year-old
q Texan steer. with his tail over the DASH
board, as well as the stock yearling, born on
the range, beneath the glorious mountain
sky and under the auspices of roundup No
21 ei s5i5aH fsf ssf,HE II
! | do not say this to advertise the stock
growing business, because it is already adj
vertised too much, anyway. So many
millionaires have been made with ''frea
grass" and the early-rising, automatic brand
ing iron that every man in the United States
who has cow that can stand the journey
seems to be about to take her west and EN-
bark in business as cattle king. '
But let me warn the amateur COW man that
in the great grazing regions it takes good
many acres of thin grass to maintain the
adult steer in affiuence for twelve months,
and the great pastures at the base of the
mountains are being pretty well tested.
Moreover, believe that these great conven-
tons of cattlemen, where free grass and
easily acquired fortunes are naturally adver-
tised, will tend to overstock the ranges at
last and founder, the goose that now lays the
golden egg. This, of course, is really none
of my business, but if I didn't now and then
refer to matters that do not concern me i
would be regarded as reticent . = EE-o
My intention, however, in approaching the
great cow industry, which, by the way, is
anything but an industry, being in fact more
like the seductive manner whereby prom
issory note acquires 2 per cent. per month
without even stopping to spit on its hands,
was to refer incidentally to the proposition
of an English friend of mine. This friend,
seeing at once the great magnitude Of the
cow industry and the necessity for more and
more cowboys, has suggested the idea of es
tab'ishing cowboys college, or training
school, for self-made young men who desire
to become accomplished The average Eng
lishman will most always think of something
that nobody else would naturally think of
Now, our cattleman would have gone on for
years with his great steer emporium without
thinking of establishing an institution where
poor boy might go and learn to rope a 4
year-old in such way as to throw him on
his stomach with sickening thud.
The young Maverick savant could take
kindergarten course in the study of cow
brands. Here a wide field opens up to the
scholar. The adult steer in the great realm
Of beef is now walking Chinese wash bill,
a Hindoo poem in the original junk shop
alphabet, four-legged Greek inscription,
punctuated with jim jams, a stenographer's
notes of a riot, bird's-eye view of prema-
ture explosion in hardware store.