Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-03-05
Ca,,Ie on the PIain.in Winter.

Although there has been less said about it,
according to late reports which appear relia-
BILE there has been more than the usual suf-
fering and loss of cattle on the plains this
winter. Whatever profit the business pays
it ought to pay larger profit if the cattle
were sheltered and fed through the storms
and the severest part of the winter, but
whether the profit would be more r less the
exposure of cattle to such suffering ought
not to be. The cold on the western plains
is greater and the winter storms more severe
than in New England. Excepting that we
generally have a greater depth of snow, and
the grass is fed or cut for hay in the summer,
cattle would suffer less here, if turned out to
shift for themselves during the winter, than
they do on the great plains of the West. A
Colorado writer describes in the New York
Tribune the actual condition of the cattle on
the great ranches in winter with evident
truthfulness. He says:
"Our Western Cattle Kings looks very
we'll in print, and raising cattle on the vast
plains, where one has but to brand his calves
and round up the fat cattle for the market
in the fall seems very fine and worthy bus
tion changes ones opinion, and half a year 8
residence in this country is calculated to con-
vince him that less 'kingly' business it
would be difficult to find anywhere. To come
to the facts:
Late last summer a large number of Texas
cattle, most Of them yearlings and two year
olds, were turned loose upon this range. They
had been held in quarantine at the state line
and were very poor consequently, when the
cold weather came on they were still thin in
flesh, unaoolimated, and utterly unable to
live through a northern winter on the range.
Within ten days Immediately preceding this
writing lit is safe to say that
not less than % per cent of these 'dogers, as
they are called, haze starred and frozen TO
death. Nor are the 'dogers' alone dying. Dur
ing the severe storm of the 9TH three Short
horn COWS died near the stacks of q field into
which the cattle had broken as they drfted
before the storm. After the storm there were
found in two fields (which together inclose
about one square mile, forty three dead cat
tie. In another smaller pasture were twenty
five. This is q partial record of one storm,
the first OF the season. Is it strange that a
somewhat notorious sharper of Denver said
i may be thief and rascal, but I've new
er been mean enough to go into the cattle
business and starve to death dumb brutes
that are incapable of helping themselves =
1--WE call this a civilized country. Is that
country civilized wherein men are allowed to
turn dumb animals loose upon a range, knOD.
ing that not less than two from that to ten,
twenty, fifty out of every hundred must
starve or freeze to death? My Eastern friend
suppose a farmer near you turned out into an
open field hundred of cattle. Suppose thai
he threw into that field at the beginning OF
winter just what hay would keep them alive
until spring If they shared equally. Their
suppose he left them thereto get water, il
they could, or eat snow the strong ones tc
monopolize the feed and the weaker tC
starve and each morning, as you went tC
your work, suppose you had to pass thii
mans field to hear the lowing of his starv
ing cattle, to see their thin, shivering formi
huddled togather under some bank, trying Il
escape the biting blast, some with their hind
feet frozen TO the hook and beginning to ro
off, down by the water hole a few that haC
slipped on the ice and were too weak to ge
up, already stiff in death or slowly freezing
my brothers. East and West, is it rial
for any man to own cattle that be cannot keel
from starving and freezing? l call upon tn
lawmakers Of the nation to make laws which
shall stop this heartless slaughter l cal
upon the societies for the prevention of cru
city to animals, and upon all human mel
and women, to speak out in denunciation o
this most barbarous business, to raise thei
voices for these dnmb sufferers, and bio
from this civilized Christian nation this mos
savage and heAthenish abuse"