DOMINION OF CANADA. 537 



DOMINIOIf OF CAHADA. 



PROVINCE OF ONTARIO. 



OPERATIONS OF CANADIAN CATTLE COMPANIES IN THE UNITED 



STATES. 



XEPOBT BY CONSUL PABEBE, OF 8SEBBB00KE. 



The Cochrane Cattle Company, of which Hon. Mr. Cochrane, of the 

 Hill Hurst Farm, Compton, is the president, owns very extensive grass 

 lands near £he Eocky Mountains in the British Northwest, where the 

 company is breeding and grazing large numbers of cattle. With these 

 herds the managers are now using Polled Angus and Hereford bulls to 

 produce the best crosses with the native stock, and grades of Shorthorn 

 and native parentage, which constitute the base of the herds. Expe- 

 rience has established it as a fact, they think, that the grade cattle pro- 

 duced by this crossing of the Aberdeens and Herefords with the rank 

 and file of the herds, endure the rigors of the climate better and fatten 

 more easily than any grades that they have been heretofore able to se- 

 cure. The Dominion Cattle Company now has a lease from the Chero- 

 kee Indians of 284,000 acres of pasture lands, and also of a large body of 

 land near the former in the Pan Handle of Texas. Upon these lands the 

 company has located forty thousand head of cattle, mostly grades of 

 native Texas and Shorthorn parentage, and not a few of them the chil- 

 dren of second crossings of these grades with Shorthorn sires. The man- 

 agers say that this continued crossing of grades of Shorthorn and Texan 

 extraction with Shorthorns produces coarseness and legginess to an ex- 

 tent that renders the cattle harder to fatten and slower to mature. That, 

 in short, the third or fourth generations produced by that kind of cross- 

 ing will not become sufiBciently fat for butcher's use upon grass alone, 

 and that herdsmen who have followed that line of crossing persistently 

 are now only able to sell cattle to the feeders. To correct this tendency 

 Polled Angus and Hereford bulls have been introduced, and the results 

 in the herds of the Dominion Cattle Company give promise of being 

 highly satisfactory. 



The methods of this company are perhaps worthy of a short digres- 

 sion from the main subject in hand. It occupies a breeding farm of 7,000 

 acres, near Emporia, Kans., which is used not only to breed the best 

 lines of pure blooded cattle, but also to thoroughly acclimate imported 

 stock before it is sent forward to the herds. To this farm the thorough- 

 bred stock from Cookshire and other Canadian breeding establishments, 

 and the imported cattle from Scotland and England, after coming from 

 the ninety days' quarantine at Point Levi, are sent in the autumn, and 

 remaining there over winter, are supplied to the herds in the spring. 

 Thus an effectual quarantine of seven to eight months is provided 

 against the possibility of sending diseased animals to the herds. For 

 first crosses with native cattle in the West and South nothing is supe- 

 rior to the Shorthorns. But for additional crosses the hardihood, com- 

 pactness, and beefiness of the Aberdeens and Herefords greatly commend 



