The pioneer press. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 1893-190?, 1896-01-09
LOCAL STOCK CONDITIONS.

OF Hand county people the neces-
sity Of mixing their grain products
with stock raising. We claim no
prophetic vision for the early days,
any more than had any one else, and
this advice was not given upon the
opinion that this country was better
adapted for stock than grain raising
because in those days everybody
thought it was a great grain cOun-
try. But the advice was given upon
the principle that it is never safe to
depend exclusively upon Il thing
which is SO subject TO change in price
or be effected by weather conditions.
Application OF this principle avoids
fads, and fads, or extremes, are nev-
er safe. The man who can strike the
happy medium will always be upon a
better footing.
So, as the PRESS then considered
the fad OF exclusive wheat raising,
detrimental, we likewise now believe
that the exclusive stock raising fad
is not beneficial for the individual
nor country. And that it is growing
towards the extreme. is evident to any
one. True it is that alter years OF
experience, we believe one of the prin-
cipal industries here should be stock
1aising, but SO mixed with farming
and dairying, as to not paralyze the
country every time stock takes a
tumble in price. And that it will
take a tumble periodically is an es-
tablished fact, for proof of which it
is only necessary to look back five or
six years when cows sold here for IS
and 81 per head, and calves as lOWas
$3.50. So, if we were to depend eX-
clusivelv upon cattle, as seems to be
the disposition at present, a time
will arrive when that one industry
will not be profitable. Besides this,
the moment our farmers abandon
farming entirely, nonresident stock
men will come in here, as elsewhere,
craze through the summer and ship
in the fall. While this is not being
done yet in Hand county, it is in a
neighboring county, where very little
farming has been done for some time.
TO illustrate, a not very distant
town boasts shipping $50 cars OF
cattle to market during 1895. The
inference, of course, is always given
that this shipment indicates the re-
ceipts OF farmers and stock men liv-
ing there-a regular product of the
county. This can not be the case en-
tirely because there are some non
resident stockmen grazing there.
Now VT do not know how many of
these $50 cars shipped last year be-
lOnged to nonresident cattle owners,
but at another time this n~eighbor
town boasts that one man alone will
Craze 1000 head in the county dur
ing 1896. In other words, this one
cattle king will ship in the greater
portion OF his cattle Just a little too
late to be assessed, Craze all summer,
ship some 100 cars to market in the
fall, and then careless observers in
that community will boast of what a
big business they are doing! And
yet, in reality, the county gets no
taxes; the man who pockets the prof-
its does not invest anything to speak
OF; the merchants have no one to sell
goods to; the cattle king has had n
big range for nothing, 0 practically
so, and he pockets his profits to be
spent elsewhere; while the cOuntrv he
has ranged over will produce no hay
TO winter livestock of those who have
to sta. Ii that kind OF "stock bust
A'SS 10 any oellellI 10 At county we
are unable'tQ figure it out. Hence
We suggest that citizens OF Hand
county should preserve every safe
guard not only to AVOID a danger
Gus eXclusiveness in one product, but
also to keep out the nonresident
stock inen who give nothing for what
they get.