AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
For the Farm , Garden , and Flousehold. 
"AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, AND MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN."—WASHINGTON. 
volume XL.—No. 9. NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1881. 
New Series—N o. 416. 
TRAVEL ON “THE PLAINS’’ — A STAMPEDE . —Designed and Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
As the railroad in the older States does 
away with much of the picturesqueness of 
stage coach travel, it in tbe Far West breaks 
up a whole system of transportation with its 
strange methods and peculiar people. The 
traffic that was in former years carried on 
between “the States,” and Mexico, by the 
way of Missouri, was a most peculiar one. 
Those who directed it were men of enterprise 
as well as of capital. The outfit of the train 
itself, comprising from 25 to 100 wagons, of 
a build not seen elsewhere, each drawn by 
six mules, with a somplement of spare 
animals, required a large investment. The 
train was loaded with every possible variety 
of merchandise that would be likely to meet 
with a sale in Mexico, and when once loaded 
up with its full complement of men, required 
for its command a person of as varied resour¬ 
ces, though of a different kind, as is needed 
to take charge of a ship with an assorted 
cargo. With such a train there was a suffi¬ 
cient supply of spare horses and mules, to 
supply any deficiency caused by the breaking 
down of the animals ridden by the various 
attendants of the train, or of those at work 
in the wagons. These spare animals made 
quite a herd, and in addition to these, as 
American horses brought high prices in 
Mexico, it was not unusual for a number of 
these to be driven along for the purpose of 
traffic. This herd of loose animals was un¬ 
der the care of several herders, whose busi¬ 
ness was to keep them together on the road, 
and when the train was in camp, they also 
looked after the whole number of animals 
while they were grazing. The herders were 
almost, without exception, Mexicans, whose 
skill in the use of the lasso, among other 
qualifications, especially fitted them for the 
work. In many localities the table lands 
are intersected by deep ravines, which allow 
those familiar with the ground to approach 
undiscovered, and surprise the herders. 
The artist shows such a stampede in the 
above engraving. The appearance of a 
few yelling Indians, at once paralyzes the 
Mexican herders, and frightens the animals, 
which soon start into a run and the owner 
never hears of them again, as the writer 
knows from painful experience. It has hap¬ 
pened, that not only have the loose animals 
of a train been stampeded, but sometimes the 
whole number, when turned out to graze, 
have been run off during the night, and ap¬ 
propriated by marauders, leaving their owner 
as helpless as the captain of a stranded ship. 
Copyright, 1881, by Orange Judd Company. 
Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as Second Class Matter. 
