The Daily Alaska empire., 1945-12-17

DACk 10 llCtllldl IJA lbla4iS AAAc-AN'At and that is why there will probably be at least one more lean period Of supply before the prewar pro- auction machinery gets .n high gear again.
 The COW country is vast sWath of terrain, starting at the Mexican border along the western three fourths of Texas and New Mexico and extending across the southern Great Plains we'll up the eastern slope of the Rockies to Canada. Much of it is profitable only fol raising beef cattle Because in the Middle West the feeding Of range cattle is the leading market for the ccrn crop ranggmen ana farmers have teamed up
 Raachars have poe A4ad II c. velopias he Iceda-Npo -an @ni- mal that responds quickly to gram and makes top-quality beef. This has been done through breeding. It isnt uncommon to see a $2,500 bull on the range Puro-bred beef cattle breeders. who now operate in every state. have made 3 biz contribution to the vastly improved beef. In the rast few years pure-bred bulls have sold for as high as S50000 and fe- males have brought up to S20,0OO. These are the blue-bloods; they are too good-at least. tco expensive to eat They go to other breeders whose main goal is ultimately to produce the perfect beef animal But from these pure-bred herds a constant stream of fine bulls goes the cattle ranches that produce the beef we eat. The average two year-old range steer Of teddy weighs at least 100 pounds more than the one of 20 years ago Better eating, too
 The new system has come gracu- ally. it has been CT the Way a-..~e the leathery old longhorn cI s.oI. song and tough steak iam- Ws bred off the range. Yet t4e COW country has retained mach oi l-s traditional color. Bow-lesged cow punchsrs stil weor b9css and big hats. They can ride a. day and part of the night. ana they are as expert as ever with a lariat or branding iron. On enormous ranches, some of the cowboys live for months in lonely line camps; they keep the windmills running, repair the barbed-wire fences, shoot predatory animals, such as wolves, and watch after the cattle. They also plan the things they intend to do when they get into town a agaln
 The ranches are still vast. The King Ranch in southern Texas sprawls over a million acres of coastal prairie and brush country. Ranches of 50,O00 to 100000 acres are common On the big spreads such as the Matador, the Spur and the Swenson in Texas, the old chuck Wagon-loaded with beans, coffee, sour dough, canned toma- tees, the stewing kind of apricots and other provisions-rolls out when the boys start the spring work Of rounding up and branding. The chuck wagon is the Waldorf of the range. After a days work the boys ride to the wagon for chuck; then they stretch out on bedrolls under the stars and the passing airplanes.
 There is little more detail work for the modern, six-gunless cowpuncher The calf of today must be vaceinated or in0culated, and he can't live on grass and salt and the muddy water el hce that just happened to 0e there. He has to be fed and he may lose precious weight If be has to so too lar to get a drink. His father probably cost a thousand dollars, and his mother was kept in top condition so the calf would be a better beef animal.
 Some ranchers sell their beef animals as calves; others keep them until they are yearlings or two- year-olds. and some few graze steers until they are three to four years old and as big as Adams off OK. All rangemen cull and sell off old COWS and keep their best heifers as mother COWS.
 A rancher on the treeless high plains of the Texas Panhandle sold 2,000 COWS, calves and -year-old heifers and steers the other day. Some of the tWo-year-o odds and the cows went to packers for immedi- ate processing; other young stuff went to cattle feeders. The calves were sold to a man who has a vast acreage of winter wheat. He will graze the calves this winter and early next spring; then the big ger, fatter ones will go to a packer and the rest to cattle feeders. There is a great deal of winter grazing on the wheat fields of Texas, Okla homa and Kansas. This wheat and the winter range on the West Coast are the main sources of pasture conditioned beef going to market in the spring.
 In the mountainous Big Bend