St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-02-13
DESTINY OF THE RANGE.
Timely Discussion Of the Exhaust
ion of Natural Grass Ranges.

ion of Natural Grass Ranges.
The impending exhaustion of the
natural grass ranges as a means for the
economical production of beef cattle
upon an extensive system gives rise to
a vital inquiry concerning the future
resources and commercial interests of
Montana. Hitherto, with the neighbour
ing Territory of Wyoming upon the
south and limited area of British ter
ritory upon the north, she has enjoyed
the anomalous position OF atfording the
most extensive, the cheapest, and yet
the most valuable extent of pasturage
in the world, as applied to the rearing
of all the varieties of domesticated live
stock known to temperate lands. Es-
pecially has this been true of cattle, be-
cause of the immunity from loss or dam
age occurring to the herds by reason
of the absence of those fatal
contagious diseases peculiar to more
SOuther ATTITUDES. 1t is true that the
grand far-reaching ranges of Brazil
and the Argentine Republic have been
for years the favored resort of cattle
growers, but experience has proven
that the nOurisLing rains and fervid
suns of tropical and semi-tropical
realms, while they give rise to more
luXuriant and superintendent yegeta-
ton, yet they do not furnish the proper
chemical elements which combine to
complete the genesis of good beef. AS
With the fruits indigenous to those
regions, nature layisheS all her cunning
upon the beauties of outward lines and
curvatures, to the neglect of the finer
innate qualities, which are the concrete
results of a harder soil and more rigor-
, Gus atmosphere. The beef OF these
favored countries has been found
to be only fit for the preserva-
tive methods of the modern
process of canning, and has not entered
into the markets OF the world in any
other form. To the mountainous dis
tTictS of Western North America the
cattle grower has therefore directed his
attention during the past fifteen years,
and the profits of his enterprise have
been so phenomenal as to have lately
attracted the notice of the entire world
to the subject, and ended, as might have
been expected. in such a disastrous
Questioning of the ranges as to threaten
tile imminent extinction of the business
SO far as 1t may be considered with re-
latiOn to its present status. The queS-
ton arises, what form OF live stock in
duStry must supersede the present one
to hold out encouragement and hope to
the people thus brought face to face with
the probable destruction of their capital
industry? 1t can be answered from two
standpoints:
First. the cultivation of the tame
grasses upon such lands as are subject
TO irrigation. and the production of hay
in such quantities as to enable herds
men to drive their stock from close
herded ranges to natural feeding points
and there prepare for the markets. The
second is met in promises offered by
the sheep husbandry; business which
In Australia has assumed magnitude
SO vast as to constitute the main indus
try of the country. AS cattle desert the
natural ranges, sheep follow and pros
per the better for its close-eropped con-
dition. No part of the world to-day Of
fers such field to the experienced shep-
herd as is found in Eastern Montana.
Vast reaches Of dry, but still richly
erased range lands may be found
throughout its extent, and attendant
upon it will come the manifold indus
trial conditions which have contributed
to build into power and wealth some of
the commercial manufacturing centers
of the earth.