The St. Johns herald., 1886-05-27
WHOLE NUMBER 72.

the cattle any good. The cattle are
 very thin and getting thinner every
 day, and if no rain comes within
 thirty days the cattle business in
 West Texas will be ruined. The
 people are very gloomy over the ] outlook. The drought extends east
 as far as Big Springs. No clouds
 have been seen in months. Even
 if it should rain now, the cattle
 would not get fat enough for mar
 ket this year. A rough estimate
 places the rate ofmortality by thirst and starvation at 800 head per day.
 Fully 10000 carcasses cover the plains. The stench as one passes along the Texas Pacific west of here is terrible.
 Fort Worth Journal Col. John \. Simpson did not tarry long at his Pecos ranch. There were no flowers or green grass to captivate, but a mournfully dry, very dry country and any amount of almost starving cattle, to look at. Vegeta- tion is away behind the season, and, in fact, there are no more evidences now of spring, were the testimony confined to vegetation, than there was three months ago, even back to the first of January. q tell you it is awful" continued the gentleman, "of course there is plenty of water in the river, continuously running snow water from the mountains, but the country bordering on it for eight or ten miles back, is as bar ren of food, almost, as sad bank. Many of our steers go back into interior fifteen or twenty miles to where sufficiency of cured grass can be had, but the amount of tra- vel necessary to cover the distance between the elements of existence, keeps them poor and fit subjects for the bog and of which that country has it's share. We have not had a good rain since last June, enough to do real good, few snows along through the winter being the main dependence" Then the Colonel grew eloquent and let loose volley of scripture on the reporter. He said "the people out there need the services of Elijah to put in a wig orous plea for rain as once upon a former occasion he, in like way, came to the rescue of the sinners" He thought there was an inviting field for a mission of this kind, and unless 1t came at an early day, the crows would have a picnic in the way of settling and closing up ac- counts. He thinks the capacity of the Pecos country is greatly over- estimated and that there are, by far, too many cattle there.
 Mir. Nimmo, chief of the bureau of statistics, in his report on the volume of trade in cattle in Texas, says: According to the best esti- mate that can now be made, there have been about 3,OOO,O0O young cattle driven from Texas to north ern ranges during the last seven years, which, at $15 per head, would amount to $45,OO0,O00. The drive" of the year 1884 was about 300,000, which, at $17 per head, amounted to $5,100,000. These figures, the best which can be obtained, are, of course, only rough approximations. They clearly indicate, however, a large demand at the north for young Texas cattle, and large supply adequate to meet such de- mand. The movement has been about as regular as commercial movements are generally, the ten dency, on the whole, being in the direction of progress. It is assert ed upon apparently good authority, that fully one-half of all the blood on the northern ranges to-day IS of Texas strain. Many persons large ly engaged in the cattle trade at the north, and the cattle raisers of Texas generally, maintain that Tex as must in the future hold the po- sition of a breeding ground, and the northern ranges that of a ma