1879.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
259 
A Camp of the Texan Cattle Drivers. 
During the past few years the increase in the west¬ 
ern cattle trade has been very large. Formerly 
Texas supplied the States east of the.Missouri and 
Mississippi Rivers with grazing stock, and the di¬ 
rection of the droves which left the Texan prairies 
was towards the east. Missouri and Illinois were 
the principal purchasers of the droves, and from 
these two States was drawn the larger part of the 
beef of this character that was sent eastward. Now 
it is all changed. A large portion of the annual 
drive passes through Kansas, Colorado, and Ne¬ 
braska, and reaches to the far off pastures of Da- 
profits of the graziers and the wages of the “ cow¬ 
boys ” who handle the droves. A constant stream 
of cattle pours out from the State, and takes the 
northern trail to reach a market. From 250,000 to 
800,000 head of cows, steers, and young stock, form 
the substance of the stream. If these cattle were 
strung along a trail, 8 or 10 feet apart, they would 
extend for one thousand miles ; and although the 
droves are necessarily driven loosely and in very 
open order, that they may find sufficient pasturage, 
yet while on the drive, either a drove, or the dust 
of a distantly passing one, will be constantly in 
sight from any part of the wide trail that is 
travelled. The routes chosen are necessarily di- 
jority of those who engage stockmen is that they 
become fascinated with their employment so long as 
it is profitable, aud contiuue in it for many years. 
Among the Farmers.—No. 42. 
BT ONE OF THEM. 
Granular Butter—Treatment. 
Recent writers upon butter-making have had 
more or less to say about “granular butter,” and I 
find, in conversation with several butter makers, 
that they have very little idea of what it is, and of 
the facilities it offers for washing and for subjecting 
the butter to the action of brine. This has led me 
Drawn and Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
kota and Montana. A few years ago Colorado was 
supposed to be a worthless desert; now Colorado 
beeves compete with the prime steers of Illinois 
and Ohio, and many of them surpass the average 
of those sent from these States. Many cattle have 
come from Montana that were fit to ship for the 
European trade. The basis upon which the cattle 
business of these localities is built has been the 
Texan stock, and from this fountain head is sup¬ 
plied the stream which fills the vast reservoir of 
those north-western plains and valleys. Mingling 
with the stream is an inflow of pure bred bulls from 
Kentucky, Illinois, and elsewhere in the East, and 
this intermingling of bloods, results in an improved 
race of beeves which, as has been stated, competes 
fairly with some of the best graded stock of the 
East. But Texas is the grand source from whence 
comes the raw material, and the current is formed 
by what is known as the “ annual drive.” Once a 
year this great movement occurs, and the drive of 
Texan cattle, its promises and its probabilities, form 
the burden of the talk of cattle-men throughout the 
country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic. 
This drive consists of the surplus from the great 
herds, which graze upon the Texan prairies and 
fields ; it furnishes the means by which a large part 
of the Texan people subsist; and it represents the 
verse and distant from each other, so that grass 
may be found in abundance, and it may be taken 
as an indication of the verdure and herbage of these 
vast natural pastures, that the cattle actually im¬ 
prove in flesh and gain in weight while on the 
drive. Spreading out as the rays of a huge fan, 
the trails lead east, north, aud west, and reach 
Kansas and Colorado on their way to distributing 
points, either in the East or the North-West. The 
drive is leisurely taken, and frequent rests and 
camps are made. A very full account of the Texan 
Cattle Drive, with many interesting statistics, is 
given in the American Agriculturist for December 
last, to which those who would learn more about it 
are referred. The present object is merely to illus¬ 
trate one phase of the adventurous life of those 
engaged in cattle driving. The engraving given 
herewith presents a camping scene of the drov¬ 
ers and a breakfast previous to starting again 
on the route. The cattle are scattered around 
the camp, and the herders hover on the outskirts 
of the drove to prevent stragglers from straying too 
far. The life of a stockman is an exciting and an 
adventurous one, aud his associations with half 
savage Mexicans, is far from being an agreeable 
feature of his business. But use becomes second 
nature, and the result of the experience of the ma- 
to look into the subject somewhat, and I will tell my 
conclusions “ as far as I have got,” to use the cur¬ 
rent slang. All know that when butter “ comes ” it 
is hardly distinguishable from cream. The prac¬ 
tised eye sees iu the mass within the churn a gran¬ 
ular character. In many churns, notably the re- 
volving-dasli churns, this takes place gradually. In 
the old up-and-down dash churn, it occurs gradu¬ 
ally also, but much more quickly and completely if 
the churn is less than half or one-third full. So it 
is also with the crank churns—the less they have in 
them the more completely is the work done, and the 
granules of butter appear more nearly all at once. 
In the reciprocating or oscillating churns, of which 
the Pendulum and Bullard are types, the change, 
when it occurs, is much more nearly simultaneous 
throughout the whole, and hence more marked. 
At first the grains are very small, but a continua¬ 
tion of the process “gathers” them. They ag¬ 
glomerate into masses scarcely perceptibly larger— 
then these unite, and thus the grains rapidly in¬ 
crease in size, until, if the churning be continued, 
the butter is gathered into large masses. This is 
the usual process of churning and gathering butter. 
Granular butter is secured when the process of 
churning stops at that stage when the grains are 
but little larger than mustard seeds, say like Pearl 
