526 
AMERIOAJST AGRICULTURIST. 
[November, 
NOON-DAY AT THE RANCHE . — Brawn and Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
Cattle Ranching in South America. 
If cattle raising can be called an industry, it is 
certainly the principal one of the eastern section 
of South America. As a matter of fact, however, 
it is not so much of an industry as a special provi¬ 
dence for those who profit by it. The vast grass 
plains, variously known as savannas, llanos and 
pampas, which are a feature of the country, are 
natural provisions for the sustenance of grazing 
animals. Nourished by their rich grasses, the 
herds increase and multiply with almost incredible 
fecundity, and man has only to reap, through them, 
the harvest bountiful nature has sowed. The only 
reason cattle raising is so much more extensively 
practiced in Equatorial America than agriculture, is 
that its practice requires less labor, and imposes 
less responsibility on the indolent native, than the 
tilling of the soil, or the manufacture of its pro¬ 
ducts into objects of commercial value. 
The South American cattle ranchero builds his 
house on the lonely prairie, where water is handy 
and the grass of the neighborhood is good. Some¬ 
times he may break sufficient ground to plant a do¬ 
mestic vegetable supply. Commonly he does not 
do that. Out of a hundred raucheros, it would be 
impossible to find more than a dozen who raise 
anything but Indian corn. This is planted rather 
for the benefit of the horses and mules of the pass¬ 
ing traveller, than for the planter's own use. He is 
content to live on dried meat with bread made of 
cassava flour which he trades jerked meat for, and 
on what he may buy in his occasional visits to the 
nearest towns. He uses little milk, and no butter 
though it might be had for the trouble of churn¬ 
ing. It is the churning which frightens him. 
Vast and primitive structures are on the larger 
OWNS TEN THOUSAND HEAD. 
ranches of the South American plains. The walls 
arc formed of stout posts, planted deep, wattled 
with saplings or split poles, and plastered over with 
mud. Under the tall roof of this building the 
i hides are stored. Beneath, in a couple of rooms 
with mud walls and floor, the ranchero and his de¬ 
pendents live. The raneliero and his family usually 
have a room to sleep in apart from the rest. The 
common herders r.epose in the general room, in 
hammocks, on shelf like stands around the walls, 
and on the floor. Outside the house is always a 
sort of open gallery in which the traveller is privi¬ 
leged to sling his hammock. He might sleep in¬ 
side, but he rarely does, unless he is a native, with 
the epidermis of a rhinoceros. 
Beside the house is always found an extensive 
corral, or pen, walled in with strong posts. Here 
the cattle to be slaughtered and those kept in the 
neighborhood of the ranclie are confined. In front 
of the corral is the slaughtering place. This is 
simply a couple of posts to which the doomed 
bovine is hauled up by the hinder legs to have its 
throat cut. Vou can scent a slaughtering place 
before you see a ranche. At killing time you can 
further distinguish it at a distance by the buzzards 
hovering overhead. The buzzards dispute with 
the dogs for the offal of the butchery, and they 
always make rousing lights over it between them. 
At slaughtering seasons, a sort of mushroom 
growth of flimsy frames, constructed out of poles, 
tied together with thongs of rawhide, rises around 
the ranche. It is here that the beef is dried or 
“ jerked.” After the animal has been slaughtered, 
the hide is pegged out on the grass to dry, a 
wooden peg being driven through each corner of 
the hide to keep it from shrinking. The meat is 
then cut into strips ; salt is well rubbed into it and 
it is thrown upon the frames to dry in the sun, the 
old folks and children of the ranche being kept busy 
driving the buzzards from it. When it is dry, 
jerked beef is as black and tough as rubber. It can 
be boiled sufficiently soft to eat, but it is serious 
eating at the best. 
The horns were formerly a dead loss to the 
rancher, but of late years they too arc preserved 
for sale. The skulls and bones are left where they 
may happen to fall, unless the ranchero is particu¬ 
larly methodical. Then they are placed into a heap 
out of the way, until in time they become a moun¬ 
tainous monument to the business of the place. 
There are to be found perfect mounds of this kind, 
which, in the course of years, become covered with 
a deposit of earth, and dressed in grass until their 
original character can only be discovered by dig¬ 
ging into them. In one section of Venezuela, an 
entire lake has been filled up with bones from the 
surrounding ranches, and is now a dry basin sown 
with gleaming skeletons, the aspect of which is 
indescribably hideous to every one but those who 
are native, and to the manor born. 
Life on a cattle ranche under the tropics begins 
with the dawn and ends at nightfall. Except at 
the slaughtering time, it is a lazy, shiftless life. 
The ranchero takes it very easy indeed, and none of 
his dependents are particularly hard worked. The 
women do more than the men at all times, and be¬ 
tween their domestic and agricultural duties, 
develop what little industry one is likely to encoun¬ 
ter. Their liege lords spend the middle of the day 
in their hammocks. At morning there may be some 
riding out to investigate the condition of the herds, 
and at evening cows with calves, which may be 
needed, are driven in. But at noon every one who 
wears pantaloons or the apologies for them, so pop¬ 
ular there, takes to his hammock, to sleep out the 
heated part of the day. In the dry season, indeed, 
labor of any kind is absolutely impossible, when 
the sun is at the meridian. Travellers halt to 
spend it in the shade, and make up at night for 
A VENEZUELAN COW-BOY. 
the lost hours between twelve and three o’clock. 
The cattle are left to nature’s care entirely. 
They are branded with a hot brand or by gashing 
their rumps or slitting their ears, and turned out 
