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some districts large quantities are held by rail- 

 road companies or other corporations. Seeing all 

 this spare pasturage, it naturally occurs to him 

 that if he could manage to get a few head of stock 

 to run they would prove a good source of profit. 

 The newspapers and agricultural journals and 

 politicians urge the same, and, impelled by that 

 healthy instinct for bettering his position which 

 has in many cases driven him across the ocean, 

 he succeeds in getting a cow or two, and these 

 soon increase, and ere long he and his neighbours 

 like-minded with himself often find they have 

 a nice little bunch of stock. 



But this success, gratifying as it is, brings him- 

 self and neighbours face to face with another 

 problem. In the district we are speaking of, 

 herd law is probably in force, which means that, 

 while the settlers have broken up a considerable 

 portion of their homesteads, they are not obliged 

 to fence ; the stock, running loose, have a natural 

 partiality for growing and succulent crops, and 

 are very apt to seek them in preference to the 

 somewhat dry if nutritious " prairie-wool " and 

 slough grass. Moreover, this (especially if it 

 happens to be a dry season) is not so abundant 

 as it was before the influx and increase of the 

 running stock. A change to fence law would 

 of course provide a remedy, but this is a costly 



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