A RANCHMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS 



Texas by easy stages to Montana, and arriving fat. 

 They were naturally free from ticks in a few weeks. 

 When I came to Texas, Chicago had established a 

 free season, when cattle from below the line were 

 admitted to the regular yards, without prejudice, as 

 the result of definite knowledge that ticks dropped 

 from November on would succumb to northern win- 

 ters. The same practice applied to many northern 

 states, which admitted them in the open season with- 

 out inspection. 



I have followed the quarantine map carefully dur- 

 ing the past twenty years, the last ten of which have 

 shown amazing changes. For five years after 1902 

 we had ticks in the S. M. S. Throckmorton pasture; 

 but we dipped and cleaned it several years before 

 the pastures across the road were clean. We drove 

 our calves to Stamford every fall, dipping them for 

 exposure, as they had to pass through infested terri- 

 tory. We did not lose a calf from infection, and 

 only a limited number from dipping — not twenty 

 head, all told, out of thousands dipped, and most of 

 those few got turned around in the vat and drowned. 

 Crude oil was the only dip that we ever shied at; 

 other dips apparently were an actual benefit, while 

 crude oil seemed to close up the pores in the hides. 



Robert Kleberg, manager of the King Ranch, was 

 first among Texas cowmen to tie onto the tick theory, 

 and his constructive work In the early period brought 

 benefits which can never be estimated. For years it 



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