SHEEP-FARMING IN THE WEST. 107 



The Eepublican Valley is 250 miles long, and with its 

 tributaries embraces an area of 25,000 square miles, or 

 16,000,000 acres of land. 



The whole country is divided into plain, bluff, and 

 valley, and there is not a rod of the 16,000,000 acres 

 that is not the finest grazing, and which is not covered 

 with a luxuriant growth of blue, buffalo, and gramma 

 grasses. The whole country is exceptionally well 

 watered by the Republican River, and the great stream 

 has among its tributaries on the north bank Hoickearea, 

 White Man, Black Wood, Eight Mile, Little River, 

 Red, Stinking Water, Medicine, Turkey, and Elm ; on 

 the south bank are Prairie Dog, Sappa Beaver, White, 

 Box Elder, Ash, Cottonwood, and North and South 

 Forks. No particular description of these streams can 

 be given, but they are mostly well timbered, full of 

 beautiful spots and natural homes for hundreds of 

 raisers and tens of thousands of herds. Here the buf- 

 falo were thickest, and only ten years ago it was esti- 

 mated that there were 1,000,000 head grazing on the 

 Republican and its tributaries. They have all gone, 

 and not 50,000 head of cattle or sheep have yet re- 

 placed them. What a field for the future stock-kings 

 of the West ! 



The Cache la Poudre, Big Thompson, St. Vrain, 

 Bijou, Kiawa, Bear, Beaver, Lone Tree, Howard, Crow, 

 Pawnee, Cheyenne, Little Missouri, Cannon Ball, Hart, 

 Belle, Fouche, and many other valleys are famous for 

 their rich grasses, and afford admirable ranges for both 

 cattle and sheep, but to describe these and a hundred 

 other rivers in the great West would require a volume. 



