The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1907-10-15

good team can clear more in a year than three
men will in feeding cattle, and his wife can make
more with 200 hens in her back yard than
stOckman can by feeding a carload OF beer, WIN
far less expense and work. TwO-thirds of the
matured beef cattle of the northwest are bought
up by alert buyers that work for the large slaugh
terers by the year. These men SEND the culls anu
the latest steers direct to the packing houses
and ship or drive the straight growthy steers to
feed yards where they can buy large quantities
of hay cheapest There they are fed by other
men and held in reserve to prevent the grower
from getting the cost of feeding the cattle he
raises.
have known of many hundreds of men that
formerly raised little bunch of steers each year
and in the fall picked out their 3-year-olds, and
some would buy enough to make up carload
and feed for the early spring market, hoping Tor
prices that would pay for their feed and labor
at home and maintain the fertility of their farms
But for the past few years they find, just as their
grain and hay about all gone and they need all
their time to put their crop in early the buyer
will not pay what the steers cost and the growers
must take what they can get, for the buyers tell
them there is plenty of good cattle in the country
and their companies have hundreds in their feed
yards And the growers need not take their price
unless they want to, but what else can they do
with feed about gone and no time to haul In high
priced feed and too early for grass? He stands
a loss and resolves in future to sell his steers
half fat for what he can get and save his grain
and labor So many adopt this course that the
market is ruined for feeders and STOCK cattle also
until over half the calves born in this state are
killed before they two months old. In No
vember and early December, 1906, on account OF
railway blockades packers secured Lewis county
and bought every hoof fit to kill that could be
bought paying $3.50 to 1878 per 100 pounds, and
got most of the daily Sound papers to sympathize
with them, they oppressed by the farmers.
Just as the train could get through, car
loads of stock followed the passenger trains and
the western stockman had to take what he could
get. Packers claim the western market is as
good as the east, but the facts the reverse.
r1xr 1oCt into who nIJr
in getting $3.50 to 1915 account of railway
blockades, in Chicago the open market, II
carloads of beef cattle sold, in two days early last
December for $3.50 per 100 pounds live
weight for spot cash, and the average those
72 cars So per 100 pounds, heifers and
ALL Steers bringing 81 to $3.50 for
choice. On August 81, 1907, with big run of
grass and range cattle, Chicago buyers, without
grumbling, paid $675 for western range cattle
that had tasted grain; S. per 100 for fat
bulls, fat heifers selling high as SIS, and train
loads of Texas and Dakota cattle selling at So
to $3.50, with Wyoming and Montana cattle at
$3.50 to Sc, with the biggest rush of cattle there
has been on this years market, with 253,8OO head
of cattle sold in the past four weeks in Chicago
and larger proportionate sales at Kansas City,
st. Joe and Omaha. Is it any wonder the western
grower wants to quit go where he can get
fair deal? Eastern farmers are paying S.
in Chicago for thrifty steers besides the freight
back to their farms to get good cattle to feed