The record-union., 1892-06-08
CRUEL INDUSTRY.
lnhumanity on the Plains at Which
to Shudder.
How the Plains Cattle are Ranged
Freezing to Death-Herders
Who go Insane.

Cattle-rsising is q conspicuous industry
If industry it can be called-and is car
ried on in, I think, every county of the
State. Large cattle herds are already
things of the past in the western end of
Montana, and it is evident that farming
and settlement will soon drive them out
of Gallatin and Cascade Counties. It is
cause for jubilation that this is the case.
1t seems strange that cruelty should dis
tinguish this branch of food-raising
wherever it is seen and in whatever
branch one studies it. From the bloody
fields OF Texas, where the ingenious
1iends in the cattle business snip off the
horns Of the animals below the quick, to
the stockyards in Chicago, where men
are found who viii prod the beeves into
pens, there to crush their skulls with
hammers, il is everywhere the same
everywhere the cattle business has it's
concomitants of cruelty and savagery.
The reader would not suppose there
was cruelty IN the mere feeding OF catCle
on the plains, but let him 60 to Montana,
and talk with the people there, and he
will Shudder at what he hears. The cat
tie-oWnerS, or cOW-meu, are in Wall
Street, and the south of France, or in
Florida III the winter, but their cattle are
on the Wintry fields, where every
now and then, say once III four years,
halt Of them, or eighty per cent, or one
in three as it happens) starve to death
because of their inability to get at the
grass under the snow. a horse or mule
can dig down to the grass. Those ami
mails have joint in their legs which the
horned cattle do not possess, and which
enables those animals which possess it to
paw"
Sheep are taken to especial winter
grounds and watched over. But the cow
men do business on the principle that the
gains in good years far more than offset
the losses in bad years, and so when the
DaQ years come, the poor beasts die by
the thousands-totter along until they fall
down, the living always trying to reach
the body OF a dead one to fall upon, and
then they freeze to death, a fate that never
Details steer or a COW when it can get
food.
Already, on some of the ranges, the
"cow-men' (cattle-oWners) are growing
tired OF relying upon Providence to su-
perintend their business, and they are
sending men TO look after the herds once
month, and TO pick out the calves and
weaker cattle and drive them to where
hay is stored. By spring time one in
every fifteen or twenty in large herds will
have been cared for in this way. In far
herds Will long continue, but in at least
fve-sevenths of the State irrigation and
the cultivation of the soil will soon end it.
The hills and upper benches, ali COW
cred with Selt-curing bunch grass, will
still remain, and will forever be used for
the maintenance OF small herds Of COWS
and sheep, properly attended and pro-
vlded with cOrralS and hay, against the
times when the beasts must be fed. The
farmers will undoubtedly go into cattle
raising, and dairy farming is certain to be
great Item IN the States resources, since
the Mills are beside every future farm, and
the most provision that will be needed
will be that of little hay for stocking the
winter corrais. Last year the cattle busi-
ness in Montana was worth ten millions
OF dollars to the owners OF the herds.
providence was on deck" as the cow
boys would say.
But the sheep there brought twelve
millions of pounds Of wool on their backs
in the same year. They are banded in
herds of about two thousand head, and
each band is in charge of one solitary,
lonely, forsaken herder, who will sur
prise his employers If he remains sane
man any great length of time. In the
summer these herders sleep in tents, and
the ranch foremen start out with fresh
provisions at lnfrequent intervals, and
hunt up their men as they follow the
herds. In the winter the grazing is done
in sheltered places especially chosen.
On the winter grounds corral Is built,
and thirty TO forty tons of hay are stored
there for emergencies when the snow
lies thick on the ground. 1t is prime
country for sheep. They get heavy coats,
and are subject to no epidemic diseases.
The grass is rich and plenty, and the
warm Pacific winds soon melt what
SHOWS occasionally cover the ground.
ll,n.x rN<Nl Nl-E, =
tralia. The tendency Of the sheep herd
ers to become insane is the most un-
pleasant accompaniment Of the business,
except the various forms of mutilation Of
the sheep for business reasons.
The constant bleating Of the sheep and
the herder's loneliness, spending weeks
and months without any companionship
except that OF dog and the herd, are the
causes that are commonly accepted to ac-
count for the fact that so many herders
go insane. Since I found insanity terri
bly, common among the pioneers on the
plains in Canada, where no sheep were
raised, L prefer to leave the incessant
bleating OF the sheep out of the calcuia-
ton, and to call it loneliness-and yet, in
my opinion, thabis not the sole reason.
The horse market has been very DOOR
for some time, and mules are being raised
for the market with better results. The
substitution of electric for horse power
on street railways has leSsened the de-
mand for horses, and so has the use of
steam farming implements. There has
been an over-supply of horses as well.
But the Montana men find horses good
investment. It costs nothing to raise
them, and all breeds seem to improve
there. They get great lung development
and acquire no diseases. When they can
not be sold for from $50 to Sl0U apiece the
owners keep them until they do fetch
those prices.-MOntana, by Julian Ralph,
in Harper's Magazine.
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