IO 
BULLETIN 87. 
grazed too closely they lose the sod which holds the sand in place 
and again become moving hills as those of Colorado were forty or 
more years ago. Some of the sand hill country is considered cap¬ 
able of carrying forty head of cattle per square mile, while the 
best clay land pasture will carry only about twenty-five head per 
square mile. 
Numbers Today Compared with Number oj Buffalo and 
Number of Cattle in the 80 s. Concerning this question we find 
no way of getting a fair comparison concerning the number of 
animals living east of the Rocky Mountains at different periods. 
It resolves itself into a guessing contest with no one able to de¬ 
cide who is the winner, and one man’s guess is about as good 
authority as another’s. Assessors’ returns would be official and 
we believe that these are more nearly correct for 1902 than for 
1885 or 1879, but we find by observation that some assessors find 
nine-tenths of the stock in the country they canvass while others 
may not find more than half. Arapahoe County comprised the 
same territory in 1879 that it did in 1902. An estimate made by 
stock men and dealers in 1879 credited Arapahoe County with 
60,000 cattle and 87,000 sheep, while assessors’ returns for 1902 
credit the same territory with 67,000 cattle and 85,000 sheep. A 
few years later (in 1885) there were probably more cattle and 
sheep in the country than in 1879. I have tried to get estimates 
of the number of cattle and sheep pasturing in the county in 
1885. Have received estimates from several old time cattle men. 
These estimates give the numbers owned by different outfits. 
They differ so widely that I cannot credit any of them. One 
gives 10,000 cattle and another 20,000 cattle to the same outfit. 
Taking averages of the estimates it appears to me that the stock 
pastured in eastern Colorado in 1885 was about equal to that kept 
on the some territory in 1902. But much of the stock was then 
kept only a part of the year and then sent to market. It is my 
opinion, (which I cannot prove to be true, neither can anyone 
prove it to be untrue) that more stock is kept the year round 011 
the Plains of eastern Coloado today than ever before in the his¬ 
tory of the country. . 
As a cattle range the territory under discussion is broken up 
by the irrigated lands along the Platte and Arkansas rivers which 
now feed thousands of cattle and sheep during winters and also 
by small dry-farming districts near Wray, Idalia and Colorado 
Springs. The adobe land in the Horse Creek region and also 
northeast of Hugo and other places was for a long time a death¬ 
trap for cattle companies which were managed by inexperienced 
men who tried to use adobe laud for winter range. That varietv 
of soil is now used only as summer range, and cattle are not put 
on grass there until the spring storms are past. In summer the 
