The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1910-02-23
CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.
SHOCKING CRUELTY TO CATTLE
ON ICY PLAINS OF WEST.
MILLIONS of Hungry Cattle and Sheen
Stagger Over Bleak Prairies With
Only leo nnd Sro... l.. 4,

Stagger Over Bleak Prairies With
Only Ice and Snow to Eat.
Upon the prairies of Montana.
North Dakota and Alberta millions
OF cattle and tens Of millions of
sheep roam, absolutely unconfined by
fence. The value of the range cattle
represents over $5OO,O0O,OOO, not to
mention nearly $1OO,OOO,OOO in
sheep.
Stock-ranging means that cattle or
sneep must take care of themselves
as best they can from December to
April or May, when the bleak prairie
is covered with snow and there is
no shelter or water-only ice and
snow to eat in it's place. For food
there is sparse dried grass, which
has to be paved from under the
grounds winter cover. Exhausted,
chilled through, parched with thirst,
dazed and consumed with hunger.
huge steers, COWS and calves wander
almlessly for a time and then drop
down never more to rise. Cattlemen
expect to lose from 5 to 10 per cent.
each winter from starvation. If it
becomes~15 to 25 per cent. it is a
bad year. Their method, akin to
that of the gambler, becomes disor-
however, when unremitting
cold sets in early, when deep SHOWS
last the winter through, and the
spring roundup shows a loss of go
to 80 per cent.
In the northwest the winter of
1867 was the most severe for 20
years. Thirty or forty miles from
the railroad in northern Montana the
record of cruelty was found, says a
writer in Golfers. By March and
April cattle, emaciated almost be-
yond belief, staggered about, plunged
into drifts or lay expiring on the
plains. Gaunt steers, huge in frame,
weakly nosed in the icy snow for a
morsel of dried grass and stood idly
awaiting their certain death.
The principal cause which has led
to growing losses is "overstocking."
The policy of the government in
opening prairie lands to homestead
ers has limited the amount of range.
Thus there is a forced increase of
stock in naturally limited territory.
Where in some places natural grasses
grew knee high 10 years ago little
for beasts now remains.
Sections of the range have been en-
tirely exhausted.
However, SO extreme, occasionally,
is the financial loss of ranging that
local public opinion is changing. The
practice is now condemned by hun
dreds Of western men.
p Humanitarians from one stand
point and the governments from an
other are trying to effect a change
in methods. Government investiga-
tors and others say unqualifiedly that
it is financially possible, and practi-
cable in other ways, to winter feed
stock. A proposition to lease the
public lands, under restriction as to
winter feeding, meets with the ap-
prova13of many interested in the con-
ditions. Stock could thus be con-
trolled and fed
No more graphic description Of
ranging can be found than that of
a western man thoroughly familiar
with the matter who has said:
There is no blacker stain on the
civilization of the nation today than
this. Imagine a single animal in De-
cember, already gaunt from hunger,
cold and thirst and of these thirst
is the most terrible-imagine this
wretched creature wandering about
on an unlimited plain, covered with
snow, with nothing to eat except here
and there, buried under the snow,
a sparse tuft of scanty, mosslike
grass; eating snow for days and
weeks, because there is nothing to
drink; by day wandering in the snow
by night lying down in it; swept by
pitiless winds and icy storms; always
shivering with cold; always gnawed
with hunger; always parched with
thirst; always searching for some
thing to eat where there is nothing;
always staring with dumb, hopeless
eyes, blinded, swollen, and fester-
ing from the suns glare on the
wastes of snow. Imagine that, and
imagine yourself enduring one hour
of it. Multiply that hour by "a
Multiply that period by the slow-mov-
ing days and nights from December
to April-if life lasts that long.
Multiply that by forty millions and
you have the record of the brute suf-
fering in this unspeakable trade"