The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1907-02-20
CONDITIONS ARE GOOD D|SASTERAT 0DEBOlT
Montana Cattle Men Deny Hard
Luck Stories
BYRON SCHWARTZ TALKS
Harve. Montara Plaindealer Publish
es Interview With Crawford
County Man

We are pleased to publish below
extracts from the Harve. Montana
Plaindealer which indicate that the
sensational hard luck stories about the
great cattle losses in Montana are
untrue. This will be good news tc
the many friends of the former Craw-
ford county men who are now large
ranch owners in Montana. The Plain
dealer says:
The Minneapolis Journal published
a dispatch recently from st. Cloud.
Mimi. that is calculated to do its
quota of damage to this section of the
west. One j. H. Howells. furnishes
the information and Howells seems as
proficient in lying as anyone who has
broken into print recently. Howells
represents himself as a big stock buy
er and states he was offered 10000
sheep but no one here has those sheep
to sell for $4,000 or 100000. Forty
thousand dollars might buy 10000
sheep here now but nothing less.
The man Howells seems as ignorant of
the value of sheep. as does the cor
respondent that handled his message.
or the city editor that permitted it to
pass. No stockmen about Harve
know Howells and if there is such a
man the chances are that he could
not buy 10000 sheep if they were in
the Chicago stock yard pens. if he
could get them for a cent a head.
Further than this the cattle are not
stacked up dead, killed b. the cold in
Northern Montana. One may ride over
northern Montana and view the scene
from a car window and not see one
dead animal. This does not mean that
there are no stock dead on the range
for there are and there are dead ones
every winter and dead ones that die
in the summer but the dead ones are
in no greater numbers now than they
have been in the past winters and
there is no reason to anticipate that
there is going to be any wholesale
loss.
Byron Schwartz interviewed.
Byron Schwartz was in the city
Thursday. having returned from Wis
it to his ranches where he is winter
ing large bands of sheep. In speaking
of conditions Mr.. Schwartz said
Conditions. contrary to the highly
colored dispatches that have been sent
out. to the contrary, are not bad. 1t
is true that there is a considerable
amount of snow but that does not
spell ruin to the stockman by any
means. am wintering SO hundred
lambs near Clifford and the loss out
of this number has been 60 since last
October. Of this number twenty
were killed by coyotes. At Box Ell
der l have 370O head of ewes and of
them ! have not lost so. These are
not even normal losses. We always
figure on a heavier loss than we have
yet experienced, or have any reason to
believe that we will suffer. My
weathers are right now fat-h6g
fat and would make prime mutton
on the block. There are no great
numbers of range cattle in the vicin-
ity of either Box Elder or Clifford
and those that are there are doing
very we'll. / have yet to see any dis
tressingly thin cattle. In all my
riding and travelling about | have just
seen one dead COW. The fact of the
whole matter is that conditions have
been grossly exaggerated and the cor.
respondents have luridly portrayed
something that does not on the range
starving cattle"
The board of directors of the Val
Telephone Company met in regular
monthly session Monday night ant
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