Imperial Valley press., 1918-04-22
LARGE AMOUNT OF
HAY USED FOR
ARMY EQU|NES

More Than 125 Tons of Hay Required
Daily for Horses and Mules at Camp
Lewis-Description of Quarters of
Animals That Draw the Guns and
Carry the Cavalrymen.
(By Associated Press)
PA visitor at Camp Lewis who
ventured out through the three miles
of barracks between the entrance of
Camp Lewis and the remount depot
would think that he had suddenly
stepped from the army cantonment
into vast horse and mule ranch in
/ Wyoming or Montana instead of part
Of the national army.
/ Everywhere one can see there are
corrals, wagon houses, hay sheds and
quantities of equipment The bar
racks are one-story houses and the at
mosphere is altogether enc of rustic
peace rather than preparations for
winning war.
! There are miles and miles of board
fences, lanes and street-all muddy.
streets where the heavy Washington
rains have been mixed with the prai-
RE soil by thousands of hoofs until
it is thick, sticky, black mess There
Gil or ,lyrro o,.Is.
where the horses are loaded on trains
or unloaded.
There are great quantities of hay
stored in the warehouses or in sheds
and more is constantly coming in, for
it takes at times 125 tons of hay a
day to feed the horses and mules here.
At present about 1900 are out in q
field back of the remount station
feeding on green forage.
The combined experience of these
western ranchers now in Uncle Sans
service has been used to devise nu-
merous improvements in the handling
of horses which have resulted in
greatly facilitating the work. For
branding horses or examining them
for disease, croWding pen is used,
consisting of a narrow alley, one
end of which opens funnel shape and
the other having a swinging gate for
a wall arranged so that the horses can
be held tightly while they are being
branded or examined. The horse is
driven into the funnel-haped end and
as soon as he reaches the opposite
end the gate is swung into place,
squeezing the animal against the op-
posite wall. 1t means safety both for
the animal and for the men. The
crowding pen has been usel $4,000
times without an accdent-a fact
which speaks well for the invention.
In the stockyards, the alleys and
gates are the same width-14 feet
so that when the horses are released
from one pen the alley can be con-
verted into another pen and there less
work in driving the animals wherever
desired. For loading and unloaing
Growing pen is used and gates of
adjustable length permit of loading
/ without waste of time in spotting
them in limited space. Three cars
can be loaded at once and Captain
jackson believes his arrangement
means a vast saving of time in get
ting under way the mounts for the
entire division whenever it shall be
called away.
Perhaps there is no place in the
United States so unfavorable for car
ing for large numbers Of horses than
Camp Lewis There is rain the great
er part of the year, making the roads
great rivers Of mud and every low
price is converted into a pond. But
despite these handicaps, the Camp
Lewis remount depot men have con
structed the largest remount depot II
the United States, and probabaly nc
other remount station has such Z
body Of men, all expert cattlemen anC
horsemen Of the plains, for handling
their mounts.