106 
AMERIOAIN' AGEIOULTURIST. 
[March, 
Editorial Notes on the Hoad, 
Among tlie Western. Cattle KancUes, 
RODE all (lay 
westward from 
Chicago with Mr. 
-, a mer¬ 
chant of Boston, 
Mass. lie had not 
long ago been 
persnaded to take 
“a flyer” in cat¬ 
tle, and his few 
head had now in¬ 
creased to thous¬ 
ands on the wild 
lands north of Kearney, Neb. The entire herd, liowevei, 
had just been sold to a joint stock company with a 
wide range north of Cheyenne, Myoming flerritoiy. 
The merchant was now going to spend his three weeks 
summer vacation in accompanying the drive from Kear¬ 
ney to the new range, wliere the cattle were to be deliv¬ 
ered. His young wife accompanied him, and thorrght 
she should very much enjoy the novel experience of go¬ 
ing three huudred nriles over the prairie with the drivers 
and herders, riding on 
horseback during the day 
and camping in a covered 
wagon at night. There is 
nothing more enjoyable 
and health-restoring for 
miiristers, collegians and 
others seeking rest, recu¬ 
peration and adventure than 
to join one of the summer 
cattle drives. They can go 
as herders, receiving good 
wages, or as guests, which 
they can always do by pay¬ 
ing their pro rata of mess 
expenses, and supplying 
their share of game and 
trout. To-day it is antelope 
on the Big Horn, to-morrow 
magnifleent trout from the 
Cache Be Poudre. Every 
spring herds of young cattle 
are purchased in Northern 
Utah and driven eastward 
to iVyoming Territory. 
Cousolidatins Cat¬ 
tle Itauelies. — As in 
railroads and other enter¬ 
prises, centralization is now 
a great feature of cattle 
raising. The work of con¬ 
solidating ranches is rapid¬ 
ly going forward, and 
whetlier for gain, mutual 
protection, or what not, 
many of the ranchmen ap¬ 
pear to be (luite willing to 
sell their rights, franchises, 
and cattle, to corporations, 
receiving their pay in com. 
pany stock. A companion 
of the writer in whilom ex¬ 
peditions through Colorado and Wyoming, has sold his 
ranche and cattle “ on the Sweetwater,” to an Engliah 
Company, for a hundred thousand dollars. A colossal 
Colorado Cattle Company is now apparently aiming to 
absorb the ranches and cattle lying between Denver and 
the Kansas border. Only last week the Company paid a 
quarter of a million dollars to one ranchman, sixty miles 
east of Denver., for his claims and cattle. Mr. Burnham, 
the Land Commissioner of the Union Pacific Railroad, 
recently told the writer that he had just received a prop¬ 
osition from the manager of a cattle company, to pur¬ 
chase the remaining unsold land of the Union Pacific 
Grant, fora mammoth range. According to the official 
report just made, the unsold lands amount to over eight 
millions of acres—a rather good sized ranche 1 
University men and under graduates still dream of this 
to them charmed life, which appears to possess a special 
fascination for educated young men. I have encountered 
these college graduates, now turned cattle or sheep 
raisers, all over the far West, from iManitoba on the 
north, to New Me.xico on the south, and 1 have yet to 
find the first one to say that he was weary of the life, and 
desired to return to civilization. Whether collecting 
and driving two-year-olds from Minnesota, through D.a- 
kotato the'’Black Hills, or tending vast herds in north¬ 
western Nebraska and Wyoming, or living in their 
” shacks” or'dug-outs along the Little Laramie, or gath¬ 
ering in their mrssing sheep after a furious snow storm 
in ihe Kiowa Valley, or loping from pasturage to pas¬ 
turage with their gentle flocks in the more sunny 
climes of south-western Kansas and Southern Colorado 
— these college graduates tell you that they are happy. 
And they appear to be so in their cow-boy costumes, with 
their simple fare, entire freedom, and handsome profits— 
that is, when prolonged winter snows, or waterspouts, 
or disease do not decimate the herds and flocks. 
This centralization now so rapidly going on, must nec¬ 
essarily barout these college aspirants for ranch life and 
adventure. As the cattle and sheep now become concen¬ 
trated in the hands of professionals, they will want to con¬ 
duct it on business principles, hiring at lower wages 
regular cow boys, and so monopolizing the laud generally 
as to afford little show for eastern boys, who now, with 
a few cattle or sheep are their own masters, and come 
and go at will. Assuming that they could find employ¬ 
ment in the large companies, the boys would not con¬ 
sent to become mere serving men, taking orders may be 
from rough, unlettered superintendents, and losing their 
entire independence. The whole charm of the life would 
then be gone. We may reasonably conclude, therefore, 
that there will soon be an end to leaving college for 
cattle raising on the plains. 
Ou to tbe Froiit.— ’Twas but the other day— 
since autumn grains were harvested—we rested an hour 
at tile prrdrie home of an old A.in€ricciii ^\.Qvlculi}tTist sub¬ 
scriber in Western Minnesota, Lyon County, near Mar¬ 
shall. His largo farm looked prosperous, and to all ap¬ 
pearances Mr. D-had located for life to grow up and 
grow old with tliis new country. Now comes a letter 
announcing that he is ag.ain ou the move. En route, he 
sends the address of the new home to which he is jour¬ 
neying with family and flocks, and if we wish to shoot 
prairie chickens over his splendid dogs another autumn, 
we mustcome on to far away Wasiiington Territory. I am 
not surprised, for he evidently belongs to the class of , 
sturdy pioneers who always want to push on to the front. 
Of them it is figuratively told beyond the Missouri that 
they become restless if a neighbor moves in within five 
miles of them. It is getting too crowded 1 They must 
have more room and so press on to prairies newl While, 
of course, this is exaggerated, there is a large class of 
pioneers who abvays want to be in the advance, and so 
it is that you find the front is settled with people from 
those States nearest to the front. Those who went from 
Ohio to Illinois, and then to Iowa when Iowa was new, 
are now pulling up and going to Dakota. Then when 
D.akota and Nebraska and Kansas arc old, well- 
settled States, these same restless spirits will be 
found in the Indian Territory, in Washington Ter¬ 
ritory, in Montana, and perhaps in Oregon. They 
enjoy the excitement of being first ou the ground, mak¬ 
ing the first selection and breaking the maiden soil, just 
as our fathers back here in the Middle States took plea¬ 
sure and pride—hard work though it was—in felling the: 
forests, working the fresh clearings and building their 
log cabins. Now, as then, these adventurous, restless 
spirits constitute a most valuable factor of Western 
growth and eivilization. They are the advance guard, 
the charging column who drive off the Red Skins, over¬ 
come natural obstacles, and make ready the ground for- 
the sturdy yeomanry who are to follow on their trail. 
Wbere Mule.*i are at a Freinlum.— The 
national prejudice against mules, very materially soft¬ 
ened during wartimes, when they performed hereulean. 
tasks, and often brought up commissary supplies, but 
for which Union and Confederate would often have slept 
supperless after long marches, or on hard fought battle¬ 
fields. They were as stubborn as the soldiers on both 
sides, but equally as patient and long suffering. To ap¬ 
preciate just how much a pack mule can do, one should 
see him starting out for a journey through defiles and 
over the mountains of Colorado. It is no exaggeration 
to say that two or three of them will carry sufficient 
goods from the plains for the owner to open a respect¬ 
able sized store back in some mountain hamlet, and they 
present a droll sight indeed, as they start off in single 
file, loaded and fairly covered with hardware, tea chests, ‘ 
pots, kettles, hats, shoes, etc., etc. They are, so to 
speak, the connecting link 
between civilization and 
frontier outposts and settle¬ 
ments which have no rail¬ 
roads or wagon routes. 
No Doctors Need 
Apply. —We are told that 
hitherto doctors have not 
prevailed in Serbia, but that 
wise women, called Babas, 
claiming to have an intui¬ 
tive knowledge of healing- 
herbs, etc., have acted as 
physicians. When a patient 
is sufieriug, for example, 
from congestion of the 
lungs, these female physi¬ 
cians administer three ap¬ 
ples grown on the same 
bough. If this docs not 
effect a cure, then the suf¬ 
ferer lies on his stomach, 
while the women sprinkle 
salt over him, and utter 
cabalistic words. This mode 
of treatment is not more 
amusing than mauyresorted 
to among some remote su¬ 
perstitious neighborhoods 
in the timber regions of the 
far West, to which doc¬ 
tors have not penetrated.. 
Forinstance, in one timber 
clearing, where we spent 
several weeks, the accept¬ 
ed cure for scrofula was 
this: Cot a lock of hair 
from as near the top of the 
Euflerer's head as possible. 
Go into the dense forest, 
bore a hole with an auger 
into tlie heart of a large 
healthy elm tree, fully ten years old. Having deposited 
this lock of hair at the extreme end of the hole thus 
made, insert a plug of wood, and -when the bark of the- 
tree has grown over the plug, the disease will leave the 
sufferer 1 This was generally believed in the settlement 
to be an efficacious cure for scrofula. But barring super¬ 
stitions of this character among back wood’s settlers and 
frontiersmen, many of them possess a remarkable know'l- 
edge of the healing virtues of roots, herbs, plants and 
flowers, a knowledge rendered necessary owing to the 
distance and difficulty of procuring medical attendance. 
The Indian herb doctor commmids as much respect and 
observance in some tribes as the chief himself. 
ISoinaiice and Reality.— Mr. Iliff, the great 
cattle king of Colorado, died during one of the writer’s 
visits to his section of country. His name, his wonder¬ 
ful success, and his thousands of cattle were the daily 
topic of conversation and envy of every lauchman. 
Death can-ie suddenly upon Mr. Iliff in tlie midst of his 
success. His widow, who but a few years ago ran a 
sewing machine for a living back in the States, was left 
one of the richest of women. Now comes word that 
Rev. Dr. Warren, whose ministry in Brooklyn, and else¬ 
where East, endeared him to a large circle of friends, 
has, as Bishop Warren, aged sixty, won and wedded 
widow Iliff in Colorado. The Bishop’s many friends may 
well congratulate him on his good fortune. D. W. J. 
