Madison County Democrat. (London, Ohio) 19??-1958, 1953-09-15
AROUND
OHIO
BY George L. ZeiS

Henrietta, TeXaS:-IhlS little
town of Henrietta, Texas, with a
population of about 5000 people,
is reputed to be in the heart of
the best beef cattle country in the
state. II is a typical western town.
Everybody knows everybody else,
they are about the friendliest peo-
pie you'd meet anywhere and they
all talk the same language-feed-
er cattle.
Henrietta is located in Clay
County. This was one of the first
counties in Texas to be considered
a drought area. Yet, if you were
to drive over the county as did,
you'd be likely to say-there is no
drought here at all.
{ Bluegrass, Buffalo grass and
others common to this range coun-
try looks surprisingly good. Even
the cattle look sleek and plump.
While I didn't see all the range
land in this county nor all the
cattle, I was told that~some COM
munities have been pretty hard
hit by the dry weather.
Short grazing can be attributed
to two major factors. One, nat
urally, has to do with lack of suf-
ficient rainfall. The other has to
do with poor judgment on the part
Of the landowner.
The rainfall has been very spot
ty for the past two years. Some
areas have had enough rain to
give satisfactory grass growth.
About five miles away hardly any
rain has fallen in the past two
seasons. Grass in such sections is
of no grazing value at all.
One of the men talked with
was Jim Maddox, a rancher who
owns and operates approximately
1000 acres of land near Henri
eta. THE old-time cattlemen," he
said, "are not complaining about
low cattle prices and the lack of
rain. They have come to expect
such conditions.
"The present conditions have
separated the men from the boys.
The ones who are really complain
ing are the drugstore cowboys
the ones who are the inners-and-
cutters"
Jim went on to describe the
drugstore cowboys" They are
the ones he said, who have made
money in some business other than
raising cattle. High prices of feed
er cattle in the past ten years or
so have induced them to invest
their money in raising cattle.
While prices were good, they
made no complaint. Then the pric-
es began to sag about a year ago.
This year they are really COM
planning about the drop.
These new splungers in the
feeder cattle business have made
another mistake other than buy
, ing too many cattle. They tried to
Craze two head of cattle on land
that was not able to support more
than one. AS result, grass was
cropped too close to the ground.
Coupled with the dry conditions,
they had no feed. And so now
they are complaining about con-
dition for which they were in large
part responsible for.
I have still to hear the real
honest-to-goodness rancher COM
plain about low cattle prices and
lack of rain. They have come to
expect such conditions occasional
ly. This is one of those years.
True, they admit, it would be
nicer to get S35.O0 or better for
their stock. But even at $1,000,
they can make a reasonably good
living-and that is what is being
paid around these parts right now.
The major complaint they made
was the high prices they still have
to pay for protein feeds, machin-
cry, automobiles, etc.
A year ago practically all the
cattlemen in this area had sold
their stock on contract. Buyers
had come in to them. But the
worm has turned this year. The
buyer is in the drivers seat. The
seller is going out to round up
someone to buy his cattle.
And he is just a little bit wor-
ried. 81