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of cows is milked, and not more than one in a hundred of the male cattle 
is broken to work.” Reports agree in representing that very little 
attention is given to the quality of milch cows, and that they and work- 
ing oxen receive very little feed or extra care. 
Mercer: But few cows have been milked the last few years, on account of the 
scarcity of grass around the ranches, and no ranchero pretends to supply himself 
with hay or fodder for milch cows. Nearly all the old and gentle ones have died, and 
we will, if we want milk, have to get gentle, young stock. Oxen have, in a measure, 
given way to horses and mules. The most serious loss to the cattle-men last winter 
was bulls. The law requires a bull to be left with every 40 cows; it has not been done, 
and the old stock nearly all died out. This willbe felt worse next year. Hunt: No cost 
of any consequence is incurred in feeding milch cows or working oxen. They subsist 
on the range, and few cows are milked during the winter months. Medina: No stables 
are provided formilch cows. They are fed on hay and corn-fodder during the milking 
season, whenever, from lean state of pasture, necessity requires, but not otherwise. 
So are working oxen during the working season. Bexar: Our system of cattle-raising 
is all wrong. We should have a less number, but of better quality. It takes, on an 
average, ten of our cows to give a water-bucket of milk, poor at that, while, I am 
told, one northern cow will give it twice a day. Ten Texas calves in the fall will not 
sell for over $15; and, I am told, one northern calf is worth as much. Then, why 
should we keep ten, when one will yield as much. Ihave also learned that an im- 
proved blooded beef in New York market is worth $40 more than a Texan, and that 
they will generally weigh 25 per cent. more at the same age. Fayette: Working oxen 
are diminishing rapidly, being substituted by mules and horses for wagoning and 
farming purposes. 
MARKETS.—A large number of Texas cattle are sold to traders by 
producers at their ranches, to be driven into adjoining, or shipped to 
more remote States, where corn is much cheaper and stock much higher, 
and then fattened. A smaller proportion probably is sold at home, to 
be taken to market for beef without further fattening; and to some ° 
extent operators themselves drive their beeves, as collected from the 
ranches, to markets in Texas and neighboring States. Feeding cattle 
for market is scarcely known in Texas. Milan County reports that 
about 3,000 head were driven from that county to Kansas and other 
markets in 1872, at a net profit of $10 per head; Medina, that for the 
Jast two years all their beeves have been driven to Kansas, where, after 
deducting all expenses for driving, they have netted $13 to $17 in gold 
per head, (the ages ranging from three to five years,) and three-fourths 
of these proceeds are estimated as net profits, that is, after deducting 
all expenses of raising and marketing the animals, kept from three to 
five years, the profit is from $9.75 to $12.75, in gold, per head. But 
it is probable that in estimating this profit on the animals which 
are raised and sold, there is no offset for the immense number 
which are raised and perish in such winters as the last. The return 
from Burnet represents that, on account of the limited home market, 
stock-raisers have “‘ had to resort to driving their surplus stock to Kan- 
sas; an operation by which many farmers have lost more money on one 
trip than they ever gained for many years previous.” In Fayette “all 
beef-cattle, over three years old, are sold off every spring, and driven 
into Kansas and other markets.” 
CHANGES.—This system of cattle-raising now prevailing in Texas 
can never co-exist with agricultural improvement. So far as it 
does prevail, to that extent it must prove an effectual bar to immi- 
gration, and to all forms of manufacturing, mechanical, and diversified 
agricultural industry. The natural causes, therefore, which are oper- 
ating to diminish its profits and necessitate its decline, whatever tem- 
porary losses they may occasion, are evidently working for the future 
good of the State. They are preparing the way for superseding an 
