Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1910-09-15
TAZEWELL HOME
OF THE EXPORT.
Frank S. WOcdSOn Draws a Graphic Pen
Picture of the Southwest and The Great
Industry Which, Has Made il Famous.

lhuuSuI WHICH; hdS mdle II Famous,
From an article by Frank S. Woodson.
Industrial Editor of the Richmond Times
Dispatch, in the issue of last SUNDAY
the following extracts are taken rela-
tive to stock raising in Southwest Viz
ginia, and especially with reference to
Tazewell county:
Just two years ago 1 was down in
Southwest Virginia on a scouting tour
and stopped over in Abingdon the day
the Washington County Fair opened.
Nearly every time 1 looked out on the
one long street of the town saw men
driving great droves of fat cattle. all
young steers, and supposing for the
moment that they were for exhibition
at the fair. l remarked to a local friend
that the whole show at the fair must be
made up of steers.
The fair be hanged" remarked my
friend, "those people driving the cattle
don't know a fair is going on. You Just
go down to the depot and you will find
out all about that SHOW"
Il went to the depot and took in
scene not soon to be forgotten. Not
less than fifty Slated cars were stand
ing on the tracks loaded to their capac-
ity with fine, fat beef cattle, and en-
ough more steers were in the pens to
load fifty more cars, and droves were
still coming in. Then for the first time
got something of an idea of the i'm
mensity of the beef cattle industry of
the Southwest. The next day passed
through several counties, and at every
railway station of any Importance 1
witnessed scenes similar to that at Alb
ingdon, men loading car after car with
cattle to be shipped to Europe, and
every steer / saw during those two DAYS
was as fat as bluegrass could make it.
was told that they were being shipped
direct from the bluegrass pastures. not
single one in the thousand or more l
saw ever having been fed on grain or
anything except the grass.
This is the season for shipping export
beef cattle, and at every railway sta
ton In Southwest Virginia scenes simi-
lar to those limited at above are being
enacted. have some letters from that
region from which l gather the infor-
nation that the shipments of fat steers
are larger this year than ever before
known in the history of the State, and
that in England and Germany these
cattle are bringing on the hoof record
breaking prices. The cattle are loaded
on the cars and billed direct to Europe
an points. The railways carry them to
Norfolk and Newport News, and there
they are loaded on the cattle ships for
their first and last trip on the Atlantic
Ocean. There is no telling the amount
of good European money that comes
every year to Southwest Virginia in
payment for grsss-fed beef cattle, and,
as one of the big cattle exporters said
to me two years ago, it is nearly all
profit after the freight charges and
commissions have been paid.
GAN the Southwest counties do an i'm
mense business in the cattle-raising and
beef-selling industry, and all of them
export largely, but suspect that Taze-
well leads in this industry, because it
has the largest grazing capacity of any
of those counties. With the exception
of part of the coal belt, at least three
tourths of its area is well adapted to
agricultural and grazing purposes, and
within that area there are a wealth of
bluegrass lands which are the admira-
ton of all who see them. Even the
lofty ridges and mountains to their sum-
mits are covered with a luxuriant
growth of bluegrass which is indigo
nous. Another very important advan-
tage, fitting it for grazing purposes, is
that 1t is exceptionally we'll watered.
while all of these lands in Tazewell
county will produce bountiful crops of
all the grains, and all of the cultivated
grasses can be grown to perfection, the
owners of those lands prefer to pre-
serve their fine bluegrass sod and en-
gage in the much less expensive and
much more congenial and profitable oc-
cupation of grazing cattle, which is the
leading industry of the county. Large
numbers of cattle Unsurpassed in quail
ity) are annually sold from this county,
large proportion of them for export
purposes; also quantities of sheep of
the finest grade, and no section of the
State is better supplied with fine draft
and saddle horses.
The article was illustrated by two
Tazewell county views-one of cattle
grazing in Burkes Garden and the other
showing shipment of export cattle be-
ing watered in the Clinch at North Taze-
well just before loading for their long
journey to foreign countries.
Baskets of every description at Bo-
uar'o