316 Report on the American and Canadian Meat Trade. 
them. These Texan cattle are sent in very considerable num- 
bers to the great corn-raising districts of the Mississippi Valley, 
where they are fattened. Few, however, if any, of the pure 
wild-bred stock are sent, the native being of very inferior 
quality, difficult to fatten, and not valuable when fat. Great 
efforts are now being made to improve these cattle, and so far 
with marked success, for they are said to improve marvellously 
when crossed with the Shorthorn. 
The special agricultural reporter of the ' Scotsman,' under 
date May 2nd, wrote from San Antonia, Texas, as follows : — 
" There are a few ' broad-acred squires ' here. Captain Kins, Nueces County, 
possessess 150,000 acres fenced, and about 200,000 unfenced land, and owns 
between 40,000 and 50,000 cattle and 5000 sheep. His herd of cattle was at 
one time much larger, but he has reduced the number so as to enable him to 
proceed quickly with the improvement of his stock, and also to rest his pastures 
within fence. Captain Kennedy, also of Nueces County, owns about 140,000 
acres, all within fence, and about 40,000 cattle ; while Messrs. Coleman, 
Mathis, and Fulton, of Aransas, have 210,000 acres within fence, and own 
about 100,000 cattle. This firm, in fact, are the largest stock-owners in Texas, 
and may well be so. Mrs. Rabb, Corpus Christi, has 50,000 acres enclosed, 
and owns 15,000 cattle, about one-halt' of her herd having been disposed of in 
one contract last fall at $4, or 16s. a head. There are many others who count 
their acres and cattle by thousands." 
The price Mrs. Rabb is said to have sold half her herd at, if 
true, denotes that the cattle were of the commonest kind ; for I 
read in an extract from the ' New York Times,' that Mr. King 
sold a large number from his herd, to go to Kansas, at $33.00 per 
head, or about 6/. 10s. The same correspondent says, — 
" These animals get no food summer or winter but what they gather on the 
prairies and in the woods ; and scarcely any watch is kept over them except 
in spring and fall, when the increase for the year is branded. All the herds 
within a radius of hundreds of miles mingle together on the unfenced ranges, 
and therefore it becomes imperative on every individual owner to have a dis- 
tinct brand for himself. These brands have to be registered with the State 
officials, and are advertised in certain newspapers, and generally consist of one, 
two, or more letters, often joined in strange fantastical forms. One man may 
have several brands, and sometimes instead of selling so many hundreds or 
thousands, he sells a certain brand, the 'strength' of each brand being reckoned 
from the number of calves branded last season. It is decreed by the State 
that every unbranded calf over twelve months old that is found wandering 
without its mother shall become the property of him who may first put his 
brand upon it, and to avoid losses in this way as far as possible, stock-owners 
go through the branding process twice every year — in spring and fall. 
" As a rule, grass is plentiful in summer, and by the end of autumn cattle 
are invariably in very fair condition ; but the waste of winter wears most of 
the fat away. It is ' a feast and a famine ' with the Texas cattle, and in a 
severe winter, such as-the last, many thousands die from exposure and want 
of food. The average loss by death in the winter is about 20 per cent., and 
last winter — the most severe season experienced in Texas for many years — 
the loss in some cases was more than 30 per cent. The prairies here and 
there are strewn with whitened skeletons, and only an acclimatised Texan 
