108 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



onions, or otlicr prodncts of the river bottoms tliey must occasionally 

 succunib. 



The chise of ISOS and beginniny- of ISOO have been remarkable for an 

 excessive amount of rain. CattUi liave suffered largely, and on all 

 the sedj^e grass lauds along the Brazos starvation has been uncommon. 

 Farther west, on the mesquite, not far from Ci)r[)ns Ohristi, &c., cattle 

 have been in fair condition ; but some idea of the scarcity of really fat 

 cattle during- the winter months may be obtained from the fiict that, at 

 Indianohi, cattle for New Orleans market could not be had under twenty 

 dollars in gold. We hear so much of cattle being worth oidy a few dol- 

 lars a head in summer, and ])eople killing them by the thousand for 

 their hides and tallow, that the only reason to be given for heavy win- 

 ter prices is the scarcity of really fat stock, ami the great distance it 

 has to be driven, even to such a port as Indianola. 



I have seen many large herds of Texan cattle that had been wintered 

 in Illinois, Indiana, or Missouri, and have made myself acquainted with 

 the average run of weights of cattle in Texas, and one most important 

 fact appears, viz., that a Texan steer will increase in twelve months, on 

 the grasses of a more northern latitude than those of his native State, 

 by one, two, and three hundred pounds over and above the highest 

 weight he will ever attain in Texas. Let us take the cattle fed on the 

 mesquite, said to be fat all the year round — and where, therefore, an 

 animal has not to make up for lost condition — and age for age, it will 

 take three of them to weigh down the Illinois steer, and probably four. 

 I take the best and the average, and it will be found, on careful exami- 

 nation, that the cattle on the noted grasses of Texas, whether from the 

 soil, heat, water, or other cause, do not attain the weight and condition 

 that the same cattle do if removed to the north, nor that northern or 

 western cattle do on their own native prairies. 



Texans are finding this out; and, much to their credit, they are intro- 

 ducing a system of corn-feeding that gives them cattle that can compete 

 in western markets with other corn-fed cattle. They can, it is true, show 

 us some prodigies off mesquite grouuds, but the average run of grass- 

 fed catthi in Texas might be improved enormously by attention to the 

 subjects of breeding, shelter, artificial feeding, &c. 



What are the active causes in operation, which tend to influence pre- 

 judicially the stamina of southern herds? Trav^eling over the prairies, 

 no one can fail to be struck by the large number of dead animals to be 

 met with. The dissection of these, or the slaughter and dissection of 

 the first animal jnet with, reveals three distinct and unfavorable man i- 

 festations. The spleen is enlarged; the animals have, without exception, 

 the "ague cake" — the stamp of a malarioU'i district; the liver is fatty, 

 and this is a lesion that miglit bo autiiapated in so warm a country ; the 

 true stomach is reddened at its left end, the membrane is eroded, or ap- 

 pears scratched wiili a sliarpnail on its folds, and although there maybe 

 only a single and small erosion, nevertheless the trace of gastric disor- 



