Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1906-12-06

In the horse department a foreman
and forty men have charge of herd
of six hundred Perclleron and thorough
bred brood mares, but as the breeding
| farm occupies six hundred acres, there
is no crowding.
| There are never any murders or slug
| gings, nor even a strike to add to the
zest of excitement 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, trustworthy
servants as long as they are decently
| treated
At salary of ten dollars a month
and rent and provisions they render
faithful and cheerfully willing service
under all circumstances, and train their
children to take up their tasks where
they lay them down. The old cook at
the ranch house has held his post for
fifty years. There is no labor problem
in southwest Texas.
The only time when there is keen ac-
tivity around the ranch is during the
great spring roundup, when the calves
are branded. There were $4,000 calves
to brand last spring.
1t took the corporal and his thirty
vaqueros solid month of severe toll to
do the trick Cowboys, by the way,
never see anything but hard work. Their
hours are from a a. m. to 8 p. rn, or as
much longer as circumstances may re-
quire, every day in the year
Santa Gertrudes ranch was founded in
1853 by Captain Richard King, former
Mississippi river pilot, who, with his
friend Captain Mifiin Kennedy, had
charge of the transport service on the
Rio Grande which supplied General Tay-
lor's army during the Mexican war.
Captain Kings ambition was TO possess
the largest and best conducted ranch in
Texas, but he died twenty years ago,
after accommodating 100000 acres.
The property was left to his widow,
Mrs. H. M. King, who turned the entire
management over to her son-in-law, R.
J. Kleberg, lawyer, who was born and
brought up within one hundred and fifty
miles of the ranch Under Mr.. Kle-
bergs management the acreage has been
increased more than so per cent
When Mr.. Kleberg took charge of the
ranch it was stocked with the usual in
ferior long horned native cattle. He at
tempted to improve the breed, but the
costly blooded bulls he brought to the
ranch invariably died few days after
their arrival
Investigation led to the conviction that
the fatal malady was caused by the bite
of tick, with which all cattle were in
tested, but to which the native cattle
were immune. He invited the co-opera-
ton of the Agricultural Department in
seeking preventive. In due time a
process of incubation which was found
to be almost infallible was perfected at
Santa Gertrudes.
The discovery put an end to the loss
of untold millions, for Texas cattle had
heretofore left trail of infection and
death among their kind wherever they
went in the North. Incidentally, Mr..
Kleberg was enabled to breed UP his
cattle until all those on the ranch are
now from one-ha1f to fifteen-sixteenths
Hereford or Durham.
The practical value of the discovery
was illustrated last spring, when lot OF
10000 yearling steers was sold at Sis q
head, and another lot of seven hundred
bull calves was sold at $40 head. Long
horn yearlings were worth So.