RHODESIA 167 



looking for 150 young bulls, and he purchased fifty from one 

 breeder. As he told me, he was pleased to find that the small 

 breeder had become alive to the necessities of the big ranches, 

 and had been concentrating on the breeding of pure-bred beef 

 strain with excellent results. 



"In time, the big ranches will create their own bull-breeding 

 herds, but this will not be for another five years or so, and 

 even then the smaller ranchmen will be in the market for sires. 

 They run, on the average, one bull to thirty cows, and as a small 

 ranch would carry 7000 cows, each such ranch would require 

 230 bulls. 



"The Chartered Company's two ranches at Rhodesdale and 

 Victoria cover together about 70,000 head; Liebig's carries 

 28,000 head ; and the ranches run by De Beers, the Anglo-French, 

 and the Central Estates, are coming on. In addition to these, 

 there are numerous small ranches, which carry from 

 300 head up to 7000, and are rapidly growing. All these 

 ranches are breeding beef, and to breed beef they must have 

 pure-bred bulls of the beef strain, together with heifers, and 

 this demand creates, as I have said, a market worth studying. 

 It may be noted that they have nothing to do with Friesland, 

 Jersey, Ayrshire, and other dairy breeds ; and it may also be 

 mentioned, to avoid trouble, that many of the cattlemen in 

 Rhodesia know more about the beef breeds than most breeders 

 in South Africa, and that they will not take inferior animals." 



Experts from America. 



Naturally, a big ranch costs money in the creation. The Char- 

 tered Company last year spent some £20,000 on native cattle, 

 representing a fraction of the outlay, and Liebig's have probably 

 spent well over £100,000 in live-stock. Expert knowledge is 

 required to protect such large interests, and the B.S.A. Company 

 secured the services of two experienced cattlemen from the 

 United States, in the persons of Mr. R. Walsh and Mr. H. 

 Fleming. Be it understood these are not cowboys, but gentlemen 

 of education, who have made it their business in life to study 

 cattle and their management, beef production, and the marketing 

 thereof. Mr. Walsh directed a big ranch in America, and Mr. 

 Fleming had twenty-one years' experience learning the business, 

 as he puts it, "all sides up." It has been asked in Rhodesia, 

 why South Africans were not engaged, and the answer is that 



