Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1907-03-01
LIVE STOCK LOSSES

LIVE STOCK LOSSES
They are Insignificant In North Da-.
kota PheIan Takes Fall out Of
sIandering Correspondents.
y J. D. Phelan we'll known cattle
grower residing in Dickinson in his
unique style trims the sails of those
people who have been busy crculat-
| ing stories regarding the imaginary
losses on the range.
In his letter published in the Dick
insOn Press he says:
Some of the stories told Of our
present winter, if elaborated little,
may in time take rank with the great
frost of 1926 in England, or the story
Of John Ridd as told in Blackmore's
Romance of Exmoor. Lorna Doone,
of the great winter that occurred
somewhere around 1880 The great
frost began with black east wind
after days of raw cold fog, and then
on the third night of the frost about
the 18th of December such snow
set in as killed half the sheep and
many even of the red deer and the
forest ponies" The great winter
was three score years after the great
frost beginning in much the same
way.
1T showed most wonderful Not
that the flakes were SO very large but
that there was no room between
them, neither any relaxing nor any
change of direction. And here it
was blocking up the doors, stopping
the ways and the water courses, and
making it much worse to walk than.
in saw pit newly used. G, The sheep
were finally located under "a great
white billow as high as a barn and
as broad as house." and after tun-
neling them out John Ridd took one
sheep beneath his left arm and an
other beneath his right and went
straight home to- the upper sheepery
Sixty and six he took home in that
way, two at a time on each journey
And all the while from smother
ink sky came the pelting, pitiless ar
rows, winged with murky white, =
and for people who had no sheep
the sight was a very fine one"
Now this is supposed to have hap
pened in Merry England not in
North Dakota.
About two weeks ago i started
on hundred mile drive for the res
ervation with Billy Marsh. He had
conjured in his mind just such a win
ter as described above. Frank Par
fridge had told him that snow was
to the tops of the sage brush, and he
naturally looked for the creek beds
to be level full and things like that
But we made the drive with team
and cutter, without the aid of a fly
ing machine, and we did not exca-
waite or tunnel through a single Creek
bed. All his cattle were alive and iii
very fair shape.
Two weeks OF most excellent
weather have prevailed since that
time, tending to knock the exagger-
alton of a wonderful winter out of
mind, and now it can be truthfully
said that for the area in western
North Dakota from the Big Missouri
to the north Of Dickinson. vest to
the Yellowstone, thence to the south
boundary line and east, including the,
Standing Rock reservation, there has
been no known loss of live stock Of
any serious proportions sss
The ranchmen to the north begin
ming with John Goodall and includ-
ing Geogh Bros, Henderson Bros
Foreman Bros. Ben Manning, Chris
tensen, Jensen, Bob Wilcox and all
Others known to me, have wintered
their cattle in good shape.
Personally, do not know of any
of the so-called severe winters when
there was less individual or general
loss Of live stock in western North
Dakota than during the present wins
ter. \. s8.
Several years ago Uncle Mack and
Eek turned several hundred pilgrim
cattle loose over north a little ways,
for God to take care, and to this day
they don't know whether the cattle
wandered back to Texas or persisted.
Hence, nurky tales Of disaster and
bone piles for other peoples prop
erty. n
The successful wintering Of stock
is a tribute to the country, and es-
5pecially to the men with red blood
in their veins who get out and are
not afraid to work 1T also empha-
sizes the fact that cattle cannot be
turned loose to drift for themselves
and Craze all the year around, re-