The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-16
AT THE CATTLE RANGES.
How the Cowmen and Sheepmen Fight
 Out Their Feud.

two thousand men who represent Wha1
 IS said to be the largest industry in tht
 world will hold their annual conven.
 ton in Chicago. These men are the
 delegates of the eight million live stock
 raisers of the United States. They rep.
 resent the owners of nearly fifty mil
 lion cattle and as many sheep, and g
 total capital invest ment of $4,500, ,O00, 900
 Most of the delegates to this annua
 convention of the National Live Stock
 association come from the great cattle
 and sheep ranges of the far west
 whence come also most of the cattle
 ana sheep which feed not only the Uni
 ted States. but a constantly increasing
 proportion of the civilized world. As a
 rule they are quiet, we'll dressed, pros-
 porous men, used to the good things of
 the world and accustomed to handling
 their large business affairs. A visitor
 to their ranch houses on the western
 pralrleS and mountain slopes would
 probably be surprised to find Oriental
 rugs on their floors, grand pianos in
 their parlors, and all the luxuries of modern life at their elbows, for they are
 men who like to live well and who are
 not afraid to spend their money. Like
 wise they have plenty of money to
 spend.
 At the same time visitor to the cat tie country would look almost in vain for the cattle baron of ten years ago.
 Within that time the cattle business
 has been complely revolutionized, and instead of a few hundred men practi- cally controlling the cattle and sending out great herds of one hundred thou- sand or more head each there are now millions of owners, and the great bulk of the beef cattle run in herds of a few hundred.
 Less than ten years ago the cattle shipped in to the great markets from the ranges were all Tong horns," and they went directly to the stock yards from the ranges, to be cut up into beef These long horns were surprisingly hardy. As cattlemen put it., they were the best "hustlers'' in the world. They could live Ion air" and could stand al- most any amount of hardship and pri- vations. Also they were cheap, and a loss of few hundred head in a bliz- gard did not mean much to the owner of a hundred thousand when he could buy others for from five to ten dollars each. They were sent to market when they were five to seven years old, and they brought about three and one-half or four cents a pound on the hoof. New the cattle bred on the western ranges are grade short horns, and are brought to maturity and market when they are two-year- olds on the average. Nor does the man on the cattle range ship his cattle directly to the market. All but small proportion of them are sold as feeders" That is, as soon as the young steers have got their growth they are taken off the ranges and sold to farmers and dealers in the great corn raising states. The average feeder" weighs eight hundred or nine hundred pounds, and the stock man gets four cents pound for it. The corn raiser feeds it on corn for five or six months. by the end of which time the feeder" weighs from twelve to fifteen hundred pounds, and is sent to the stock yards as prime beef" where it brings as high as seven cents, or even fraction more a pound.
 Tn other words, the cattle raiser of the great west sells his two-year- odds at present for at least as much money as he got for his flve-year-old long horns five years ago. At the same time, the man who prepares feeders" for the market makes profit not only of sev- eral cents a pound, but also adds from three to six hundred pounds to each of the cattle he handles.
 This revolution in the business has been brought about by the substitution of pure bred beef cattle for the old long horns. These pure bred animals not only mature in one-third of the time furnish a much better article of beef. They cannot be left to take care of however, as could the old long horns. They must be given much more attention and must also be pro- tected from undue exposure and priva- ton. Where long horn would go out and rustic a good living for himself, one of the new grade steers would lay iown and die. Consequently, it is no onger possible for man to handle so | many of them, and the average size of | the herds has been cut down to less han one tenth their old size.
 The gradual settlement by home ,teadere of the most fertile parts of | he old cattle ranges has also had its | ,ffect in cutting down the size of the l lerds.
 It Is also true that within the last i've years hundreds of cattlemen have zone out of that business and started nto the raising of sheep. The demand Or both wool and mutton has been an increasing one, and the sheepmen have ,een, as a rule, exceedingly prosperous This great increase in the numbed of heepmen has necessarily greatly cut town the amount of country which is pen to the cattlemen, and as a conse- uence there is at present bitter ri- airy on between the breeders of sheep nd cattle. In many instances this ri- airy has broken out into open war are, and in some of the western states he cattlemen are organized for the urpose of keeping out the sheep at the oint of the Winchester rifle.
 To appreciate the bitterness of feel ng which exists between the two class s of live stock men 1t Is necessary to something about the results f feeding sheep in a cattle cauntry
 In the first place, most of the sheep