The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-09-01
LARGEST PRIVATE ESTATE.
THE KING RANCH NOV CON-
 TAINs 4 MILLION ACRES.

sand Acres--only Three Hundred
 persons Live on the Ranch, but There
 are Eighty Thousand Head of Cattle.
 By the recent acquisition of tract Of ITO Oo0 acres Santa Gertrudes Ranch, in southwest Texas already reputed to be the larfgest estate in the world owned hv A. private individual, was incrased to the immense proportions of 2,OOO square miles or 1,2S0,000 acres. This single ranch is, therefore, almost twice as large as the State of Rhode Island and contains 25,000 more acres of lana than does the State of Delawar
 All this immense area, says Harper's Weekly, is owned by one elderly Wom- an of simple tastes and retiring habits who takes no active part in It's management and does not even live upon the land for the greater part Of the year. Her intreset in the ranch is strongest during Christmas week, when with traditional Southern hospitality she entertains half hundred guests in the great manor house,
 However impressive the statistics Of Santa Gertrudes may be on paper, the visible reality is not at all imposing. On slight swell of ground by no means high enough to be dignitied by the name of hill stands the ranch house a neat white building large enough to serve the purpose of good sized hotel with detached dining room and kitchen and abundant verandas, after the Southern style.
 To the rear is a grass bordered reser- voir fed by an artesian we'll, an untidy barn and corral, a blacksmith shop and some shades tres. At the right is the ranch commissary whence are drawn all the necessaries of life and as much of it's luxuries as the scanty Mexican population of the ranch ever known. Beyond the commissary lies a hamlet of neat brick cottages which house the Mexcans who are employed at head quarters.
 From the upper window of the ranch house one may look out in any direc- i tion over an expanse of level prairie fringed with mesquite until the hazy rim of the horizon shuts the view; and that is absolutely all. However | thoroughly convinced one may be of the existence of those 2,000 square miles, or of the SO,000 head of cattle and 1000 head of horses and 1000 goats that graze theron, as a spectacle the largest private estate in the world is a distinct failure.
 It does not take many men to run a big ranch. The total population of Santa Gertrudes, white and Mexican men women and children, is 300. If the ranch were as densely populated as | Rhode Island it would have 814,000 in- I habitants. Even the 300 are scattered so that very few of them are ever seen togther.
 The ranch is divided into seventy 1 pastures. On each of the largest and on groups of two or three of the small CT pastures a family lives. IA small pasture, in this instance is understood to mean 5000 acres or so.
 Tn the horse department a foreman and forty men have charge of the herd of 500 Percheron and thoroughbred brood mares, but as the breeding farm occupies 600 acres there Is no crowd ing.
 There are never any murders or sluggings, nor even a strike to add tc the zest of excitment to the life of the ranch. All the employees here. as else where in southwest Texas, are Mexi- cans, who are actually content to be faithful, industrious, honest, trust worthy servants as long as they arc decently treated.
 At a salary of $10 month and rem and provisions they render faithful and cheerfully willing services underall circumstances, and train their chidrer to take up their tasks where they laS them down. The old cook at the rancl house has held his post for fifty years There is no labor problem in sotuhwes 1 Texas.
 The only time when there is keen ac tivity around the ranch is during tn, great spring roundup when the calve are branded. There were 24,O00 calve to brand last spring
 It took the corporal and his thirty vadueros a solid month of severe toi to do the trick. Cowboys by the way never see anything but hard work Their hours are from A. M. to P. M os as much longer as circumstance
 may require, every day In the year.
 Santa Gertrudes ranch was founde
 in 1853 by Capt. Richard King, form
 CT Mississippi River pilot, ho with hi
 friend Capt. Miffin Remedy, had charg
 of the transport service on the Rio Grande which supplied Gen. Taylor
 army during the Mexican War Cap Kings ambition was to possess tn , target and best conducted ranch i
 Texas, but he died twenty years az
 after accommodating SO0,0O0 acres.
 The property was left to his widow
 Mrs. H. NJ. King, who turned the en , tire management over to her son-in
 law, R. J, Kleberg, a lawyer who wa ' born and brought up within 15O mile f of the ranch. Under MT. Kleberg 3 1 management the acreage has been ir l creased more than 50 per cent. l When Mir. Kleberg took charge C the ranch it was stocked with the usu l al inferior long horned native catl He attempted to improve the breeC ], but the costly blooded bulls he brougf . to the ranch invariably died a few day 2 after their arrival
 Investigation led to the convictio