HISTOKY OF HEREFORD CATTLE 



529 



my hands he was used for several years by Geo. 

 Hendricks, who only parted with him to pre- 

 vent in-breeding. He was next purchased by 

 Col. W. R. Colcord, and now stands at the 

 head of his herd of Shorthorns, and though well 

 advanced in years he is still active as and vigor- 

 ous as a calf, and is giving perfect satisfac- 

 tion. The Colonel is as clever a gentleman as 

 ever left the blue grass regions of Kentucky, 

 and if desired I have no doubt he would be 

 pleased to give further particulars concerning 

 this aged bovine monarch of the plains. 



Mr. Rust, -like Geo. Morgan's friend, "Red, 

 White and Roan," evades the principal ques- 

 tions at issue, and now that the hunting and 

 trout-fishing" has been monopolized by Mr. 

 "Red, White and Roan/' he pitches into me per- 

 sonally, and virtually says my literary attain- 

 ments are inferior to his, and that my hat band 

 is smaller than the one worn by him, which is 

 certainly very strong argument in favor of 

 Shorthorns as range cattle, all of which I am 

 willing to concede rather than neglect the cattle 

 or quarrel over so trifling a matter. He is not 

 even satisfied with this, but accuses me of 

 studying the cattle business by lamplight. A 

 grave charge indeed, but nevertheless true. I 

 confess even more. I have studied it by the 

 glimmering light of tallow candles, in lonely 

 and isolated dugouts, far beyond the reach of 

 civilization; by silvery starlight, while making 

 my tedious nightly rounds guarding slumber- 

 ing herds, when the country was infested by 

 hostile savages; by brilliant sunlight, when my 

 herds were slowly wending their way northward 

 through the burning sands of a southern clime. 



Yes, I have studied the cattle business by the 

 light of as fierce and vivid death-dealing light- 

 ning as ever flashed from an angry sky, and a 

 time, too, when comrades were laid low in death 

 by the fury of the storm. When the artillery 

 of heaven made the very earth tremble by the 

 force of her cannonading and peals of thunder, 

 that scattered my herds in the wildest and most 

 terrific stampedes. Yes, my lessons in the cat- 

 tle business were all learned in the stern school 

 of experience, and of course cannot be com- 

 pared to Mr. Rust's theories or "book larnin'." 



W. E. CAMPBELL. 



MATTERS AFFECTING USEFULNESS OF PLAINS 

 CATTLE. 



To the "Gazette": 



There is, I presume, no occasion for further 

 discussion between W. E. Campbell and myself, 

 he having, in the matter at issue between us, 

 acknowledged in his last letter that the position 

 I had been endeavoring to maintain was cor- 



rect. I had stated that the manner in which 

 bulls were raised had more to do than anything 

 else, with their practical usefulness and vigor 

 upon the plains, and that to this, more than 

 the matter of breed, was due the conflicting 

 experience of individuals with the different 

 kinds of bulls. Mr. Campbell would not listen 

 to any such talk, and denounced it as mere 

 theory. After considerable discussion back and 

 forth, which I trust has not been wearisome to 

 your readers, Mr. Campbell concedes that the 

 position I had assumed was correct; that the 

 manner in which bulls are reared as to 

 whether pampered, housed and forced to early 

 and excessive growth, on corn and other con- 

 centrated foods does affect their usefulness 

 and capacities for plains life. And he even 

 goes further and submits an extract written 

 by himself and published years ago, in which 

 the same idea was advanced. This is all right; 

 I claim no originality in the idea. The "the- 

 ory" is a sound one, and so long as it is ad- 

 mitted, I am quite willing that Mr. Campbell 

 shall himself have the credit of having first 

 conceived it. It is certainly worthy of the "ex- 

 perience" of which we have heard so much, 

 and of the study of the cattle problem under 

 the discouraging and appalling conditions lie 

 describes. Having brought him to the point 

 of publicly confessing what he knew all the 

 time to be facts, I congratulate him upon his 

 candor and bid him good-by. 



The difference in the breed of bulls for use 

 on the plains, so far as the points of present 

 discussion extend, appear to me to be much 

 overestimated. The only point which has been 

 seriously urged is one of hardiness. And con- 

 sidering the fact that the loss among plains 

 cattle, with all the vicissitudes and inclemen- 

 cies to which they are exposed, are practically 

 as small, if not smaller, than the losses upon 

 the farms and cultivated fields east, it cannot 

 be contended that a matter of increased hardi- 

 ness in plains cattle is one of very great im- 

 portance, as compared with some other matters. 

 A very trifling difference in quality or weight 

 would cut much more figure in the profits of 

 the ranchman than anything he could possibly 

 secure through increased hardiness in cattle al- 

 ready hardy enough for the practical purposes 

 of their surroundings. A very large proportion 

 of these plains cattle, almost all of them in 

 fact, save those -brought from Texas and the 

 regions bordering upon the Gulf, have a strong 

 admixture of Shorthorn blood not as much 

 as they ought to have, but still more or less of 

 it. And their hardiness, so far as the require- 



