Year: 1871

We thought to escape the severity oi
Northern winter by spending por
ton of the season In the sunny South,
but we have been disappointed. The
week ending Christmas was severe for a
northern climate, and left us detained
for two days by. the ice on the bank OF
Red River.


And here now within 20 miles OF
Austin, the ground is covered with
snow and ice, the ponds are frozen over,
and we sit enveloped in our coats and
blankets, shivering around a roaring
fire. Three days ago men with their
coats off were very comfortable picking
cotton in the fields. Such is the
fickleness of a Texas climate The win
tor is unusually severe, and stock are
doing very poorly. In trip through
the state from Preston 10 Austin and
Galveston, through Collin, Dallas,
Ellis, McLennan, Bell, and Williamson
Counties, we have seen a larger per ct.
of poor cattle and horses than ever be-
foIe. Texas is not the stock country it
has been. Through the center and
southern portion the amount of cattle,
in years past, has been so great that
the original native grasses have been
nearly destroyed, and the range is COM
paratively worthless.


The stock business of Texas is drift
ing westward, and immense herds of
cattle are ranging on the frontier in a
semi-wild state. They seldom see the
face of civilized man except in the
branding season, when men in gangs
Of dozen or more, hunt the country
over, and lasso and brand every un-
marked cattle they can find. Hence
the man who has the best horses aud
most men, and is most persevering,
brands the most cattle, and his stock
from a very small beginning soon be-
comes immense. This is feature of
the stock business, as now conducted in
Texas, which renders it almost impossi
BILE for an honest man to make it profit
able. The only remedy is to keep
stock constantly under hand, and the
only part where this would be practi-
cable, on account of the range, is
wholly impracticable on account of the
Indian raids.


Through the central, and eastern, and
southern portions most stock men are
disposing of their cattle as fast as they
can collect them. Many propose to
drive their stock to Kansas, others pro-
pose to sell to dealers at home. We
think the amount of stock which will
reach the Kansas market In June and
July will be much larger than in any
previous years, and more of it will be
held by stock growers themselves, as
stock buyers will hardly be willing to
pay the advanced prices which the stock
growers are anticipating advance
of 90 to 20 per cent. on last spring.
prices.


The supply of Texas cattle in the
quantity brought forward in the last
few years cannot continue, and the pri-
ces must necessarily advance. The era
of cheap beef is over, and the price in
the near future must be governed by
the status of the vexed Indian question,
which just now is assuming an import
ance which demands a speedy solution.
The question of cheap beef interests
every citizen, and in order to obtain it
the rich grazing lands of Western Texas
and Kansas, the valleys of New Mexico
and Colorado, must be freed from the
raids of wild Indians, which now rem
der the largest part of that region un-
inhabitable by the stock-grower.


1t matters very little to the people or
the government if the Indians in their
monthly raids steal few horses, shoot
q few men whom they can overpower
and carry off, or murder few women
or children, but so soon as they begin
to realize the fact that it is causing a
steady increase in the price of beef,
we shall expect that effectual measures
will be taken to render the valleys and
the eastern slope of the Rocky Noun
tains, the grazing fields of America, as
habitable as any portion of our vast
domain. Until this is the case, we may
look for steady increase in the price
of beef as compared with the other
necessaries of life.


SHORT HORN.


WILLIAMSON Co., Texas, Jan. Il.