132 THE BEEF BONANZA. 



Mexican sheep, averaged five pounds to the fleece. 

 Cattle in large quantities are kept in the same way, and 

 the cattle worked poor in freighting turned out in fall 

 are fat and ready for the yoke or the butcher when 

 spring comes. The quantity of lands adapted to this 

 business along the eastern slope, in the valleys and 

 mountains, is simply immense, amounting to millions 

 of acres. The facilities for sale and shipment are all 

 that can be asked or needed. I have no hesitation in 

 saying that these lands are destined to supply the wool 

 and mutton for a large part of the country, and preserve 

 this industry now being driven out of the Eastern and 

 Northern States by the cost of winter feed and the 

 greater value of lands for other purposes. I may also 

 add that the snow never falls to any great depth on the 

 grazing-lands, and is taken up by the atmosphere, often 

 leaving scarcely a trace of dampness on the ground." 



Governor Thayer, of Wyoming, writes : " In some 

 respects I look upon grazing as the most important of 

 the varied resources of that region. It is the most im- 

 portant, as the great want of our population is a plenti- 

 ful supply of cheap animal food. It is also important 

 as the only means of furnishing cheap wool from which 

 to manufacture low-priced clothing for our laboring 

 classes and for exportation. The interior of all conti- 

 nents, with their high, dry, and comparatively arid table- 

 lands, has furnished winter grazing, by which means 

 low-priced wool has been grown. It is so with Asia, 

 Africa, and South America and Australia. It will 

 be pre-eminently so with all that country west of the 

 Missouri River. The experience of the freighters on 



