Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-09-27
ROUND-UPS.
An Old Cattleman Tells of Low Prices
Forty Years Ago.
Texas Cattlemen will Not Do Much Shipping
this Year-Good Prices Looked for
In the Spring.

Stockmen, while it is fact that prices
should not become so much discouraged
as to believe that better times are not il
store for them. 1t is not only in thi:
time that prices have been down, even
lower than they are now. There are
those living who well remember wher
dressed hogs sold for less than hogs on
tie could be bought tor 81 80 and 81 per
head in some sections of the country.
Mr.. Waldo F. Brown of Ohio gives the
younger stoekmen some of his experience
in years gone by, and tells of the fearful
low prices paid for stock them, and his
experience will show that the depression
of prices belong not alone to this time.
He says:
''In the fall of 1916 dressed hogs sold
at Sl.75 per 100 pounds, yearling calves
for 81 or 50 head; and in 1850 after we
had moved to Ohio my father bought q
herd of cows TO start cheese larry pay
ing from 81 to $40 per head for them.
The hog was the only farm product on
and even with the price from 81. so to So
per 100 net, W hich was about the average
price, farmers could make money rails
ing pork. The hogs obtained half their
living in the woods. and in years when
the mast (beech nuts and acorns) was
plenty the hogs would fatten on them.
Even when fed corn there WAS a good
profit, for corn was cheap, and hog,
after condensing thirty bushels or more
of it into its carcass, could transport it
self to distant market at a very small
expense. My memories of the hogs of
that day have been revived recently by a
trip to Eastern Central Tennessee, where
the elm-peeler, razor back hog can be
found to-day IN all its original purity of
breeding. In the fall of 1916 my father
fattened 400 hogs and 1 recall that the
800 on the home farm in Union county,
Indiana, ate an acre of heavy corn a day
for some weeks. These hogs were sold in
November to be deliver on the hooks
IN Cincincati, and had my first expert
ence as a drover in helping to take them
down. The weather was pleasant, the
roads were good, the hogs not over fat,
and We averaged ten miles day, reach
ing the city on the evening of the fifth
day. After more than half month on
the road the hogs were safe in their pens,
but our troubles were not at an end.
For the hands there was the weary
journey back through the mud, and for
the owners of the hogs a weary waiting
for cold weather so the slaughtering
could begin. For fourteen long days
nv father waited his hogs eating corn
which by combination among
the feed men cost 81 n bushel and hud-
died in pens without shelter, the hogs
lost in weight every day. During all
these DAYS the price of hogs steadily de-
cllned until when the market re-opened
one and three fourth cents pound was
the best bid. Every drover in our market
knew th-t he had lost not only his hard
labor, but heavily in money besides, and
many were financially ruined. Fathers
losses were heavy, but determined to
make them up, and knowing that he
could buy stock hogs at very low prices,
be contracted to deliver 500 the first day
of March, and after spending night
with his family was again on the road.
1t was but q repetition of the former eX-
perience, except that the light store hogs
could travel better and reqnire no
wagons to accompany them. The rams
raised the SIRENS so they could not be
crossed, and the time specified in the
contract expired while the herd was still
miles away, and the hogs were disposed
of at loss. When 1 hear the young
farmers of to-day complain of the hard
ships aud drudgery of farm life, recall
my boy hood days and smile, realizing
that they do not know the meaning of
thn