The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-05-22
SOUTH DAKOTA cATTLEMAN ON
CHANGING CONDITIONS.
IS NOT WHOLLY AN EVIL
Settler with Fenced Pasture the Com
ing Producer Of Future
Beef Supply.

II AS the encroachment of settlers
more and more reduces the free range
to which the cattlemen have been
accustomed the more conservative of
the latter are beginning to realize
that that which they formerly regard
ed as an unmitigated evil is not who'll
ly without compensating amount of
good and are accepting the changing
condition with better grace.
Among the Oldest stockmen in what
is now South Dakota is P. F. Nc
Clure of Pierre. He settled there
during the territorial days ana was
one of the pioneer merchants OF the
town that eventually became the cap
ital of the new state that was created
out of the southern half of the terri
tory of Dakota. Almost from the first
Gay Of his arrival there he has been
identified with the cattle industry and
is reputed to have grown wealthy
from it. Recently he was at Sioux
City and his attention was called to
dispatch from Fort Pierre, on the
west bank of the Missouri which
stated that the first of large influx
OF settlers had arrived there for the
purpose of making their homes in
Stanley county. which has hitherto
been given over to grazing exclusive
ly. In reply he said:
II have been up in that country
long enough to have seen the rise
and development of the great stock
industries west as we'll as nearby on
the east Of the Missouri river and
have been identified with that industry
since first l went to Hughes county.
have watched it's progress from
the standpoint OF a businessman,
and it must Oe said that during the
series of years it has proved profit
able industry Tor those who are en-
gagged in it, as we'll as the banker
and tradesman, whose interest,
though less direct. is by no. menas
| less important. The stock business
| mas been the backbone OF business in
| the western and northwestern part
| Of the state for q decade and has
reached the fulness of it's develop
ment in the last few years.
Il am among the number who at
| first resented the encrOachments
made by the settlers and small stock
men upon the large interests which
numbered live stock by the thousands,
and whose acres OF range were not
numbered at all. thought that
could see in the advent of the settler
a menace to the free range which was
| the only condition known west OF the
| river. I have seen the free range
abolished east OF the river, and dur
| ing the past two years have seen
encroachments made upon it west OF
| the Missouri, as the champion OF the
large stock interests as against the
4 smaller industry represented by the
man who owns small tract and leases
| another and confines his stock to
the range to which he has the first
and undoubted right.
Under the free range system the
| waste is beyond computation. Some
of the territory is fed to the grass
roots, while that isolated from water
districts is practically untouched, OF
fed sufficiently to preclude the possi
bility of securing hay crop with
which to feed the stock in winter The
hazard and the loss under the free
range system is something which coult
not be borne in locality where the
lands had a marketable value, and il
is a fact that as the lands attain 9
market value the unrestricted free
range becomes thing of the past.
am no longer opposed to the breaking
up of the free range system, but vel
come it as condition which had tt
come, and it has not come too soon
"The small stockman will fence
his pasture land and he will also fence
his hay land and he will be able tt
feed his pasture land to it's limit
hut will not impoverish it, while nj:
i, hay land will produce each year to it!
capacity, and the result will be tina
where now the cattle are left on thu
plains in the winter they will be pro
:. tected and fed, and better cattle vii