THE TEXANS. 177 



flank, with narrow hips and quarters, great offal in proportion to 

 their consumable flesh, and coarse all over. Their meat must 

 be stringy, tough, and of coarse quality. Wild and savage in 

 appearance, they looked scarcely more civilized than a herd of 

 Dacotah Buffaloes. 



In contrast to the specimens above described, it is but fair to 

 say that we have since seen better animals, so far as flesh and 

 condition was concerned, of the Texan cattle. They were a 

 small herd of some thirty in number, which had been brought by 

 the cars to the Buffalo Cattle Yards for sale. They had been 

 well fed on corn and grass for several months, and looked sleek, 

 and in good flesh, so far as such raw boned and loosely made up 

 cattle could be. They were six to seven years old, and made an 

 average weight of over 1200 pounds each. Good four year old 

 grade short-horn Western steers, were selling at the yards, the 

 day we saw them, at 7> to 8 cents per pound, live weight. 

 The Texans were sold the same day for 6 cents. 



Now, adding the two to three years additional forage which 

 the latter had consumed, the interest on their value after four 

 years old, and then deduct the one-fifth to one-fourth less price 

 they sold for, together with the contingencies of disease or loss 

 by death meantime, and the comparative economy an breeding 

 and grazing such cattle by the side of those of good flesh pro- 

 ducing breeds, or their crosses, is easily solved. 



Great numbers of these cattle are driven from northern Texas 

 and New Mexico, up through the Indian Territory into Kansas 

 and Missouri, thence into Kentucky, Illinois, and so on eastward. 

 They stop little to graze on their journeys, as they gain but a 

 small increase of flesh in a land of civilization,- and the sooner 

 they arrive at the shambles the better. They are worth little 

 to the butcher or consumer, and, that they cost but little to 

 their breeders, would, as a commercial article, be comparatively 

 worthless. 



8* 



