Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1916-11-10
INDIAN CATTLE AND SHEEP
GROWERS.

Washington, D. c., Nov. 5.-Cato
Sells Commissioner Of Indian Affairs,
has just returned from Chicago where
he supervised the sale of thirty-four
carloads out of shipment of fifty
one cars of Indian cattle from the
Crow reservation, Montana, seven
carloads having been sold in Omaha
the day before. The Commissioner
spent most of the day on horseback
riding among the cattle in the pens
OF the stock yards, discussing the cat
tile and prices with his commission
man and the buyers.
Commissioner Sells is not only n
lawyer and banker but also real
thing farmer and stockman. He
knows the business from every angle.
In conversation today with the
newspaper men Commissioner Sells
said:
1.-TWO years ago last June, with
funds derived from the sale of part
OF their lands we purchased for the
Crow Indians seven thousand two
year old heifers, two thousand year.
ling steers, and three hundred and
fifty bulls. Since then these cattle
have been handled under my direc-
ton and the immediate supervision
|, CT Reservation Superintendent Eastcp
and Superintendent of Livestocl; Will.
cut, assisted by Indian stockman and
lineriders.
Two hundred and fifty-six head
have heretofore been sold, bit this
sale was the first big shipment, when
ffty-one car loads of Grow Indian
cattle reached Omaha and Chicago
stockyards and sold for ninety-sev-
en- thousand, nine hundred and ninety
three dollars and forty-two cents. All
of these steers were range-raised and
grass fed, not pound of corn or feed
other than grass and hay ever hav-
ing been fed to any of them. In
Guiding the increase of the herd, the
profit of the Crow Indians on the orig
MAJ purchase in twenty-seven months,
after paying all expenses, has been
three hundred and fifty-two thousand
ollars. The first year after the pur-
chase of these cattle, the Indians cut
and stacked five thousand tons OF
hay to winter their herd and last
winter cut and stacked nearly seven
thousand tons. The winter loss dur
ing each of these years has been
about two per cent, which is consid
erably less than the loss usually sus-
tanned by white cattlemen during the
winter in the northwest.
Heretofore. our conduct of the
stock business among the Indians has
consisted largely of upbreeding and
the development of herds. Every
where the Indians have taken great
interest in their live stock, both as
to bridal herds and those individual
~ owned, and the increase in num-
Der and value has been such as to in
sure Il business mans profit. We
lhave sold wool and mutton and some
horses, but we are only now COM
mencing to widely and substantially
realize on their cattle.
The sales from the Grow reserva
ton are the beginning of large sales
from this and other reservations. 1t
is demonstration of the wisdom of
the policy of utiliZinr the grazing
lands of the reservation for the ben
eht of the Indians and positive indi-
cation of the responsive disposition
of the Indians when given opportuni-
ty with sympathetic encouragement to
do things for themselves
About three and half years ago
l inaugurated and have since ag-
excessively pursued policy of farm
and stock raising betterments among
the Indians the immediate being to
make them producers rather than al
together consumers. Shortly after
becoming Commissioners of Indian
Affairs l discovered that the agri-
cultural and grazing lands of the In
dlan reservations were not being util-
lzed as they should have been; that
the large part of their grazing lands
was leased to white men for q mini
mum rental and likewise much of the
agricultural land; that the Indians
were not making proper industrial
progress and that their income from
the leased lands was much less than
would have been derived either when
rented or cultivated by themselves;
all of which meant lack of pro-
gross AMI large appropriations by
Congress. neither of which was in any
sense satisfactory, and all demanding
radical change. To remedy this con-
dition, the Indian Office has made a
vigorous and unccasing campaign
with gratifying results. For example,
three years ago one reservation in
the Northwest had twenty eight hun
dred acres under plow; last year
there was in cultivation by Indians on
this reservation fifteen thousand
acres. The announcement is not so
great everywhere as there, but it is
exemplary of the progress being made
by the Indians as farmers on practi-
callv all the reservations.
1t cannot be expected that all In
dams shall advance from plainsmen
to intensive farmers in one genera
ton, but that they are now making
tremendous progress is apparent in
the entire country, many of them
being among the best and most pros
porous farmers in the vicinity of
their residence, frequently comparing
favorably with their white neighbors.
AS stockman they have been even
more successful. The Indain is nat
ural herdsman. He loves horses, and
readily, adapts himself to raising cat
years the Indian Bureau has purchas-
ed with funds of the Indians mot a
dollar of the amount invested being
gratuity), more than two million dol
lars worth of cattle, horses, and sheep
for tribal herds and individual In
dams, most of the purchases being for
breeding purposes; at the same time
an Industrious effort has been made
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