Hank and Jimmy

My brother's cattle dogs

Jimmy is a Border Collie. He's the younger of my brother's two cattle dogs. Both dogs are intensely attached to my brother, and they aren't friendly with strangers. They consider it their duty to protect their people --it's a characteristic of their breed.

I really felt honored when Jimmie let me pet him on the last day of my recent visit to my brother's ranch in Kansas. Hank, the older dog, would not make friends with me. When I took the photo below, Hank knew I was looking at him with my camera, so he carefully ignored me.

I think Hank is also a full-blooded Border Collie, but I could be wrong. A cow kicked Hank a few years ago and broke his leg. After several surgeries, his bad leg still bothers him. He can't run as fast or jump as well as he used to, but he still likes to help.

Hank and Jimmy love to go for an adventure. Here they are in the back of the truck. When my brother goes to the pastures to check his cows, they ride in the back of the 4-wheeler.

As soon as they enter the pasture, Jimmy jumps out and runs. Pretty soon, my brother asks Hank if he wants to run too, and he usually does. The dogs run in front of the 4-wheeler and smell all the important places along the trail. Many sites need pee from both dogs. They also check certain clumps of bushes for rabbits and deer every day. A good chase is remembered forever.

One evening while I was there, we found the neighbor's bull in the pasture with my brother's cows. The dogs saw him immediately and knew that he did not belong there. Here's Jimmy, heading the bull down the road to another pasture.

My brother commented that this bull seemed accustomed to being driven by dogs, because he didn't fight Jimmy much. Still, the bull didn't really want to leave the cows. My brother put the 4-wheeler between the bull and the dog a few times when the bull put down his head and charged at Jimmy. It made me nervous.

Here we go over the hill and across the pasture with the bull. When we got to the corner of the pasture, one of my brother's bulls spotted the stray and headed toward us. The situation could have turned ugly, but my brother got the gate open while the dogs held the red bull, and we got the red bull through the gate and into the corral before the black bull arrived. They bellowed fiercely, but two fences were separating them.

I admired and respected the nerve of the cattle dogs, and I said so to my brother. Oh, he said, things like that are what the dogs live for.

A ride around the pasture fences revealed no broken wires, so the stray bull's method of entry into my brother's pasture remained a mystery. We had seen him on the road earlier in the day. My brother speculated that the bull might have walked across or jumped across the cattle guard. (Some cattle learn to do that.) Or someone might have put him in the pasture to get him off the road. The poorly-kept fences around the bull's home pasture are teaching him to be "breechy" --that is, good at (and fond of) going over, under, around, and through fences.

Every pasture ride with the dogs ends with a race. My brother backs up to a little high spot so Hank can jump into the back of the 4-wheeler (he has the bad leg). Then Jimmie takes off like a greyhound, and my brother drives fast on the 4-wheeler behind him. Hank barks wildly with the excitement of chasing Jimmy, and Jimmy wins the race. Riding along is an exhilarating experience.

My brother says his dogs listen to everything he says and are always thinking about what he means. They don't always understand, but they always want to understand. They have large vocabularies and excellent memories. They love him, and he loves them. They love my sister-in-law too, but my brother is their favorite and, in their eyes, the esteemed leader of their pack.

I can't write about my brother's dogs without mentioning Sammi, his first cattle dog. She was a sweet, smart Australian Shepherd - Border Collie mix. She helped my brother train Hank, her successor. I showed my son this photo of Sammi's grave tonight, and I may have seen a tear in his eye. Sammi was dearly loved by my children, and she lives on forever in their memories of childhood visits to the ranch.

Corner Post

Seen at my brother's ranch in Kansas

The Elkhorn Livestock Company

One of my unsolved mysteries

About five years ago, I found an old seal on eBay. Or maybe I should say that I found a seal-maker. When you insert a piece of paper and squeeze the handles of this little tool, you get a tidy embossed circle that says "Elkhorn Livestock Company, Bassett, Nebraska" around the edge and "Seal" in the center.

You may remember that Bassett, Nebraska, is my hometown. I grew up on a ranch out south of Bassett. So when I saw this nifty device that was connected to the place of my childhood, I bid $5 for it, and after a few days, I became its owner. No one else even bid on it. It was meant to be mine!

I was very curious about the seal's history, but the seller had no information to share. He found the seal in a box of stuff that he bought at an estate auction in Minnesota. He didn't even remember whose estate it was.

I wrote to the Rock County Historical Society and asked if they knew anything about the Elkhorn Livestock Company, but they had no information, either. And  I couldn't find anything about the company on the internet. So with little hope of ever learning anything about the Elkhorn Livestock Company, I filed my questions in the back of my mind.

Then, a few months ago, I was looking at a 1912 plat book of Rock County, Nebraska, on Ancestry.com, and I noticed a couple of landowners south of Bassett whose names are similar to "Elkhorn Livestock Company."

An "Elkhorn Valley Land Company" owned 2920 acres, all in one piece, in the northeast corner of Thurman Precinct. And an "Elkhorn Land and Cattle Company" owned an adjoining 360 acres in Lay Precinct. If these two outfits were one and the same, they owned over five sections in total, one of the larger spreads in that part of Rock County at the time.

I also found a possible clue in a 1911 book of discontinued American corporations and securities. It says that the Elkhorn Livestock Company (the name that's on the seal) of Embar, Wyoming*, cancelled its Nebraska charter in 1909. Maybe the "Elkhorn" names in the plat book are different than the name on the seal because of legal changes?

Tonight, I searched the internet again for "Elkhorn Livestock Company" and I learned that the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has a document that pertains. Box 4 of their Mari Sandoz papers includes the following:

Item 174. W.B. Hodge to Mari Sandoz, 1937, Nov. 10 [frame 1037]
Regarding Elkhorn Livestock Company; the hanging of Kid Wade; Doc Middleton; someone claims to be Mari's sister.

Kid Wade and Doc Middleton are well-known names in early Rock County history, so I'm virtually certain that this letter has information about "my" Elkhorn Livestock Company.

I sent the UNL library an email asking how to get a transcript of the letter's text or a photocopy of it. The library's website says that I should get a reply within 48 hours, and I'm waiting with keen anticipation to see what they say. Maybe the story of the seal's first owner will be revealed at last.


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*Researching the Elkhorn Livestock Company of Embar, Wyoming led to a strange discovery that I'll write about another time!

Sale of a Large Sandhill Ranch

Circle Cross Ranch at Valentine, Nebraska

The 40,000 acre Circle Cross Ranch near Valentine, Nebraska, sold at auction on Dec. 2, 2011, for $11.75 million. A seven-brother partnership, represented by Danny Weinreis of Minatare, Nebraska, and Gene Weinreis of Golva, North Dakota, placed the winning bid.

You can read more of the details in "Ranch sells for $11.75 million" on the Norfolk Daily News website. There's also a video tour on You-Tube. What a beautiful place! It includes 7 miles of Niobrara River frontage. I'm pleased to read that the Weinreis Brothers will continue operating it as a cattle ranch.

Wet and Dry

Flood and drought in the heartland

Mississippi River near Cairo, Illinois Bridge over the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois

The last week of July, I drove to southwestern Missouri to get together with my brother and sister at my sister's house. It was great to see them, and I also enjoyed the road trip.

I crossed the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. It was obvious that the fields along the approaches to the bridge were planted very late due to the spring floods. On the Missouri side of the Mississippi River, I saw more evidence of flooded fields and late crops. Farms in the area were flooded last spring when the Corps of Engineers broke a levee on the Mississippi to ease the flooding in Cairo.

Most of the fields had young, broad-leafed plants growing in them. First, I thought that the little plants were probably soybeans. Then I wondered if they might be cotton, because southeast Missouri grows quite a bit of cotton. There are short-season cottons that will mature before frost, even when planted late. Whatever the crop, I'm glad some farmers in the river bottoms may get a harvest this year, despite all.
.

Hay trucks on Highway 60

NOAA image

As I drove west on Highway 60, I followed two trucks loaded with big hay bales for miles. They were probably going somewhere in the drought-stricken plains farther west, where people don't have enough grass to feed their livestock. If only their pastures could have some of the water that flooded the fields along the Mississippi this spring!

It was very dry north of Springfield, Missouri, where Charlotte (my sister) lives. My brother Dwight, who has a ranch southwest of Wichita, Kansas, says it is terribly dry there, too. He usually rents a couple of pastures to another fellow every summer, but when last winter and spring were so dry, he decided to sacrifice the extra income and keep all his summer pasture for his own cattle. He hasn't had to buy any hay yet.

Near Charlotte's house on the night that I arrived, a farmer was mowing the dried-up, stunted, mostly-dead corn plants in his field. A couple days later, he baled the stalks for cattle feed. The drought-stressed cornstalks may be high in nitrates, so the farmer will need to have the cornstalks tested so he doesn't accidentally poison his cattle. The cows won't think that cornstalk "hay" is very good, but they'll eat it if they're hungry enough. 

This longhorn cow still has grass in her pasture near Charlotte's house. It has become hay on the stem, but that's much better than no grass at all!

Droughts and floods are problems for all of us, not just for farmers. These disruptions impact grocery store prices, affecting everyone who buys food. Please, pray for rain for those farmers and ranchers who need it -- and sunshine for those who don't need rain!

The Hayfield Water Jug

Cool water in a hot place

My dad prepared thoroughly for the haying season. He overhauled all the tractors and hay-making machinery and got each component into the best working order possible. He stockpiled sickle sections and guards, rake teeth, sweep teeth, belts, hoses, tractor gas, oil and grease, hydraulic fluid, and so on. In the back of one of the pickups, he mounted the gas tank for fueling the tractors. He also mounted the wooden carrier that held the big Igloo water cooler where a thirsty hay hand could get a drink.

I didn't participate in the pre-season work in my father's machine shop, but I did make a new hayfield water jug every year. In the hayfield, I worked separately, away from the group that was putting up the cured hay. I was on the mowing machine at the edge of the uncut grass. I needed a personal water jug so I didn't have to travel far to get a drink.

Here's how I made my hayfield jug. I raided Mama's collection of jars and acquired a big glass vinegar or cider bottle. Then, I raided her cloth scraps and acquired some rags and pieces of old jeans.  I wrapped several layers of rags around the bottle, fitting the cloth to the curves, and I tacked the layers in place with enough stitches to hold them together.

Then, I enclosed the bottle in a layer of denim that I cut from the old jeans. I made some  tucks and folds so the denim would fit the bottle's shape, and I sewed it in place as neatly, tightly, and firmly as I could.

I didn't invent this method of making a hayfield jug. I watched my mother make them when I was a little child.

Every day, before I went to the hayfield, I filled my jug with cold water, and I also saturated its cloth shell. When I got to the hayfield, I found a shady place to stash it. The evaporation of the moisture from the cloth wrapper helped keep the water in the jug cool.

In the hayfield on a summer day, the hay crew got hot and dirty. We didn't have air-conditioned cabs on our tractors. The only shade was from our hats. Dust and pollen and chaff stuck to our sweat-dampened skin  and clothing. Sometimes we got off our machinery and worked up an extra sweat by moving hay around by hand or fixing something that was broken. The hottest work of all,  in my experience, was to lie in the prickly grass stubble under my windrower and pull a hot, wet, sappy clog of hay out of the crimper.

Sunbaked, gummy with sweat and dust, my arms green with grass juice after a crimper episode -- then, how sweet it was to pull my still-damp jug from its shady nook and drink deeply. If cool water ran down my face and soaked my shirt as I tipped the jug, it was a well-earned bonus.

By the end of the hay season, the denim cover of the water jug showed hard use. It had been damp to some degree all summer. It had lain on the ground and rolled around on the grimy floor of the pickup truck, day after day. The stitching had come loose in places, releasing odd folds of cloth, and threads had raveled where the cut edges of the denim were exposed. It didn't matter. By then, the water jug had served its purpose.

I would make a new jug next summer, as we prepared again to go to the hayfield.

Thanks for reading this memory of my childhood in the Nebraska Sandhills.

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Related:
Hayfields I Have Known
The Hayfield
Newport, Nebraska: Hay Town
Bull Stories
Horse-drawn Hay Rake
Horse-drawn Hay Sweep-Rake

Hayfields I Have Known

Meadows I've mowed

Around Christian County, KY, the first cutting of hay has been taken, and across the nation, many farmers and ranchers are making hay. If you pass a hayfield, you should slow down, open your window, and breathe in the sweet scent of fresh-cut, sun-warmed hay. Ahhh. Hay has smelled like that for thousands and thousands of years -- there's a nice thought to enjoy.

I grew up on a cattle ranch in some of the best hay-producing country in the world -- Rock County in the Nebraska Sandhills. Making hay was the main work of the ranch every summer. All of my family's energy and focus was directed toward harvesting enough hay to feed the cattle during the next winter.

I spent seven summers mowing in the hayfield. The first year, I had a little tractor with a six-foot bar. It broke down a lot, so the next year, my dad put me on a better tractor with a new mowing machine that had a nine-foot bar. Don Saar, a grown-up neighbor boy, ran the double-bar mowing machine, and I followed him -- together, we did the mowing. A few years later, my dad got a self-propelled windrower, and on it, I became the only mower of our haying crew.

This rig predates my mowing years.

Several areas of the ranch were primarily hay-lands, and we always hayed them in a set order. First we cut the Little Meadow. just east of our house. (I am capitalizing because this name was just as official as the Black Hills or the Platte River. We never called that meadow by any other name.)  We always made haystacks on the Little Meadow. In the fall, my dad moved the stacks to a "stack yard" (a fenced enclosure) near the house. He saved those stacks for feeding the cattle on the very worst days of winter, because they were closest to home.

"Under the 1785 [Federal land surveying] ordinance, section 16 of each township was set aside for school purposes, and as such was often called the school section. Section 36 was also subsequently added as a school section in western states. The various states and counties ignored, altered or amended this provision in their own ways, but the general (intended) effect was a guarantee that local schools would have an income and that the community schoolhouses would be centrally located for all children."  (Quoted from Wikipedia)

After we finished the Little Meadow, we moved the hay equipment across the ranch road to a piece of land we called the "School Section". (In the early 1960s, the State of Nebraska sold the school sections in Rock County, and my dad bought a tract of the local school section that he had previously leased. I think it was about a third of the section.) Bloody Creek ran through that piece of land, and it always produced a lot of hay.

When we were done making haystacks on the School Section, we stacked the Big Meadow, which adjoined the south end of the School Section. Then, we went to the west side of the ranch, and mowed the meadows along Skull Creek. I think we always baled (made hay bales on) the west side of Skull Creek, because the bridge was not wide enough to pull the stacker across.

And finally, we went back to the extreme east side of the ranch and baled the Long Quarter. The Long Quarter was so named because it was 1/4 of a mile wide and l mile long (a quarter section of land). We had to cross John Dearmont's long quarter to get to our Long Quarter, so we always waited until John had finished haying before taking our equipment across his meadow.

There, on the Long Quarter, was Bloody Creek again, somewhat bigger and wetter than it had been on the School Section. And there were the angriest bumblebees of all the meadows on the ranch! They had been building their nests and hoarding their honey all summer long, and they didn't appreciate any disturbances. Someone nearly always had a bad encounter with them!

This photo of my brother was probably taken before I was born.

It was always exciting to mow around the sloughs (or "wetlands" as people say now) of the Skull and the Bloody. The challenge was to mow as much lush grass as possible without getting your tractor stuck in the mud. There were no set boundaries for what could be mowed. It varied from year to year. Sometimes I got off the tractor and waded through the grass ahead to feel how wet the ground was. And I always watched the tractor tires. If water started dripping off them or they were muddy (bad news!), it was time to get back to higher ground! And another bad omen was when the ground beneath the tractor tires began to quiver. (The soil was so saturated just below the surface that it was like a huge pudding with a slightly hardened crust.)

My dad hated "streaks" -- narrow strips of grass left unmowed because the person on the mowing machine was being careless. I had plenty of time to think while I was driving my tractor around the endless patches of grass, but every time I let my attention wander too far, I left evidence. And once a streak has been left, it's quite difficult to back up, drop the mower bar into all that loose hay, and mow that little narrow strip. Mower bars like nothing better than clogging up in loose hay.

Looking back now at the summers I worked in the hayfield, I realize that was my first experience with work responsibilities. I particularly remember being disgusted one Saturday when I wanted to spend the day at the rodeo. It was good haying weather, and my dad didn't want to let me off my windrower. I had to mow as late as possible the night before and mow a while in the morning before I could leave. I hadn't thought my hayfield job was that essential -- but of course it was.

I understand it all much better now. Our very livelihood depended on the hay.

My dad welded the hydraulic arm that's
 lifting the hay -- and built the tractor cab too!

Related:  
Newport, Nebraska: Hay Town
Horse-drawn Hay Sweep Rake
Horse-drawn Hay Rake
The Hayfield 

Great photo of an old-time hay crew on Flickr

U.S. Agriculture in the Early 1900s

Farm and ranch statistics and photos from 100 years ago

The statistics below are quoted from World Geographies: Second Book, Kentucky Edition (pp. 202-206) by Ralph S. Tarr and Frank M. McMurry, published in New York by the MacMillan Company in 1922.

I scanned the photos in this post from the same old book. I hoped to find photos that complemented the statistics, but no photos were available for some categories, such as hogs, horses, and hay. I finally decided to just scan some of the most interesting pictures of agriculture, whether or not they are related to the numbers. It's impossible to know when the photos were taken, but it seems likely that they were more up-to-date at the time of publishing than the statistics were.

Scenic Kansas Highway 160

What I saw between Independence and Winfield

Here are a few photos I took last summer in Kansas. I attended my aunt's funeral in Independence, Kansas, in the morning and then drove to my brother's place north of Harper, Kansas, that afternoon.

I took Highway 160 from Independence to Harper. Kansas Highway 160 is a two-lane, east/west, "principal highway" that stretches across the entire state of Kansas. The section I traveled runs about 20-30 miles north of the Kansas/Oklahoma state line.

This valley just west of Independence, KS,
has a unique topography.

I wondered if this old building had once
been a boarding house or hotel, or perhaps
the town home of a wealthy cattle baron. I
can't remember which little town this was in,
so I must drive Highway 160 again and find out!

Despite scorching temperatures, the grass was green and
lush in the Elk River valley. Rain had been ample thus far.

 

The Flint Hills are a tallgrass prairie. I always enjoy
driving through them. Trees are scarce, the sky
is immense, and the view seems endless.

Main gate of a Flint Hills ranch. No buildings
were in sight. It's impossible to guess how far
 from the highway the ranch headquarters are.

The Stockman's Cafe in Cambridge, Kansas. The
mural on the side of the building is called
"The Count." The cowboy is standing on the
hilltop, counting the cattle in the valley below.

After the small and empty cowtowns of the Flint Hills,
Winfield appeared both populous and prosperous.
Well-kept older homes and large trees line both sides
of Highway 160 as it enters the east side of town.

Related on the web:
Early Cambridge Kansas Pictures
Elk Falls - World's Largest Living Ghost Town
Old postcards of Longton, Kansas
Kansas - The Elk River Valley (Flickr)

Classic Ranch Scenery

Beautiful Kansas prairie

This photo has a big sky, prairie grass, a barbed wire fence, a corral, a windmill, and cattle on the hill. The only thing missing is a cowboy on a horse. I saw this scene along a gravel road west of Zenda, Kansas.

Theodore Roosevelt's Autobiography

Recommended reading

I came across Theodore Roosevelt's autobiography in Google Books this weekend, and as I was looking through the table of contents, the chapter titled "In Cowboy Land" caught my eye.

The eloquence of the descriptive paragraphs that open the chapter surprised me.

It was a land of vast silent spaces, of lonely rivers, and of plains where the wild game stared at the passing horseman. It was a land of scattered ranches, of herds of long-horned cattle, and of reckless riders who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or of death. In that land we led a free and hardy life, with horse and with rifle. We worked under the scorching midsummer sun, when the wide plains shimmered and wavered in the heat; and we knew the freezing misery of riding night guard round the cattle in the late fall round-up. In the soft springtime the stars were glorious in our eyes each night before we fell asleep; and in the winter we rode through blinding blizzards, when the driven snow-dust burnt our faces. (From page 103)

If you like stories of the Old West, I think you'll enjoy this true account of real-life adventures. The chapter relates some of Teddy Roosevelt's experiences as a rancher in what is now southwestern North Dakota. He remembered the region and its people with great affection.

As I read, I realized that Teddy Roosevelt had a good sense of humor. I can imagine this scene very well, and his dry remark at the end of the anecdote amuses me.

Most ranchmen at that time never had milk. I knew more than one ranch with ten thousand head of cattle where there was not a cow that could be milked. We made up our minds that we would be more enterprising. Accordingly, we started to domesticate some of the cows. Our first effort was not successful, chiefly because we did not devote the needed time and patience to the matter. And we found that to race a cow two miles at full speed on horseback, then rope her, throw her, and turn her upside down to milk her, while exhilarating as a pastime, was not productive of results. (From page 107)

Roosevelt wrote that, compared to many of the men he worked with, he was not a good roper or an exceptional horseman. However, he didn't mind laughing at himself.

When the camp was only just across the river, two of the calves positively refused to go any further. [George Meyer] took one of them in his arms, and after some hazardous maneuvering managed to get on his horse, in spite of the objections of the latter, and rode into the river. My calf was too big for such treatment, so in despair I roped it, intending to drag it over. However, as soon as I roped it, the calf started bouncing and bleating, and, owing to some lack of dexterity on my part, suddenly swung round the rear of the horse, bringing the rope under his tail. Down went the tail tight, and the horse "went into figures," as the cow-puncher phrase of that day was. There was a cut bank about four feet high on the hither side of the river, and over this the horse bucked. We went into the water with a splash. With a "pluck" the calf followed, described a parabola in the air, and landed beside us. Fortunately, this took the rope out from under the horse's tail, but left him thoroughly frightened. He could not do much bucking in the stream, for there were one or two places where we had to swim, and the shallows were either sandy or muddy; but across we went, at speed, and the calf made a wake like Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. (From page 120)

Roosevelt's years as a Dakota rancher (1884-1886) followed a great tragedy in his life -- the deaths of his wife and mother on the same day (February 14, 1884).

After Teddy Roosevelt lost many of his cattle in the winter of 1886, he went back east, remarried, fought with his Rough Riders in the Spanish American War, served as governor of New York, served as Vice President under McKinley, and then became President after McKinley died in 1901. He followed up the Presidency with an African safari.

A detailed and interesting timeline of his life can be read at the Theodore Roosevelt Association's website.

Missionary in a Cow Town

Wild days on the Nebraska frontier

Whitman, Nebraska, the end-point of the B. & M. railroad in the late 1880s, was a rough little frontier town with stores, saloons, dance halls, corrals, and a train station. All the ranchers for many miles around drove their cattle to Whitman to ship them to market.

In his 1921 memoirs, Trails of Yesterday, pioneer rancher John Bratt tells an interesting story about Whitman. An elderly preacher came to the little prairie outpost with deep concern for the souls of the cowboys, railroad workers, gamblers, outlaws, fallen women, drifters, and others who frequented the town's establishments.

Mr. Bratt describes a rowdy scene in a dance house. The old preacher was being forced to dance with a drunk woman, and cowboys were shooting at his feet to make him step higher.

[The old preacher] stood it all good-naturedly until completely exhausted. He got into one corner of the hall and sat down on the floor. After resting a while and during a lull in the dancing, the old man got upon a gambling table and commenced to talk to the crowd. He said he had attended their dances every night and done everything they wanted him to do, including many things that were not right. "Now," he said, "with your permission and God's help, I will hold service in this hall to-morrow, Sunday night," and asked them all to come. They told him they would be present. I could not help but admire the old man and told him I would remain with the cowboys from our round-up camp and would personally help him all I could.

The next morning, Mr. Bratt borrowed an organ from the stationmaster's wife and pursuaded her to play it for the service. He also cleaned up the dance hall and secured a promise from the owner not to sell liquor during the service.

A crowd gathered in the dance hall that evening. The preacher stood at a table with a lamp, a Bible, and a hymnbook, and spoke from his heart. Then the hymn, "Rock of Ages", was sung.

Tears came to the eyes of some of the women and all seemed deeply interested, until some one shot the lamp to pieces on the table. This mean act incurred the displeasure of nearly all present. Another lamp was secured and "Doc" Middleton walked up to the side of the old preacher and said, "Whoever did that was damn mean and if he does it again, I'll kill him." The man who shot the lamp left the hall and the service proceeded without further interruption.

At the end of the service, the group passed a hat for the old fellow, and $130 was given. The next morning, having accomplished his mission, the preacher got on the train and went back east.

Doc Middleton was well known as a horse thief, of course, but many people liked and respected him. He was gifted with natural charm, and he enjoyed a Robin Hood reputation of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. This story speaks well of him, I think.

About the others who attended that Sunday service, Mr. Bratt wrote:

The cowboys and I came on to the round-up camp on the Dismal River where we had left it. On the way some of the boys talked freely and regretted what they had done and promised to do better.

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Quotations in this post are from Trails of Yesterday (pages 275-277) by John Bratt. Published in 1921. Try the "Flip Book" of this text.

Ranching in the Early 1900s

A look at cattle ranches of America's Great Plains, 100 years ago

The following paragraphs are quoted from the textbook, World Geographies: Second Book (p. 112-115) by Ralph S. Tarr and Frank M. McMurry, published in New York by the MacMillan Company in 1922.

MEANING AND EXTENT OF THE GREAT PLAINS

Passing westward from the fertile valley of the Red River of the North, one finds the farmhouses decreasing in number and the country becoming more and more arid until finally, in western North Dakota, there is very little farming without irrigation. At the same time, the plains gradually rise higher and higher, until, near the base of the Rocky Mountains, an elevation of fully a mile above the sea is reached. This arid plateau, extending from Canada to southwestern Texas is commonly known as the Great Plains...

...[M]ost of the arid region of the Great Plains is unsuited to farming. For this reason, there are comparatively few large cities, as you can see on the map. The entire western third of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, as well as the Great Plains farther west, are given over mainly to ranching.

This industry is carried on in much the same way throughout all parts of the arid West. In western North Dakota, for instance, there is little water except in the widely separated streams, and there are very few trees except along the stream banks. Since the ranchman must have both water and wood, he locates his house, sheds, and stockades, or corrals, within easy reach of these two things. If there is no neighbor within several miles it is all the better, for his cattle are then more certain to find abundant grass.

WHY FEW FENCES

Few fences are built, partly because most of the region is owned by the government, not by ranchmen. Very often they own only the land near the water; but this gives them control of the surrounding land, for it is of no use to anyone else if his cattle cannot reach the water. Another reason why fences are not common is that it is necessary for the cattle to roam far and wide in their search for food. The bunch grass upon which they feed is so scattered that they must walk a long distance each day to find enough to eat.

A single ranchman may own from ten to twenty thousand head of cattle, and yet they may all be allowed to wander upon public land, called "the range". Usually they keep within a distance of thirty miles of the ranch-house; but sometimes they stray one or two hundred miles away.

Twice a year there is a general collection, or round-up, of cattle,-- the first round-up occurring in May or June, and the other early in the fall. One object of the first is to brand the calves that have been born during the winter.

Since there are few fences, cattle belonging to ranches which are even a hundred miles apart become mixed during the winter; and those in a large herd may belong to a score of different ranchmen. Each cattle owner has a certain mark, or brand, in the form of a letter, a cross, a horseshoe, etc., which is burnt into the side of every calf.

A round-up, which lasts several weeks, is planned by a number of ranchmen together. A squad of perhaps twenty cowboys with a wagon and provisions, a large number of riding horses, or "ponies," and a cook, go in one direction; and other wagons, with similar "outfits," set out in other directions. Before separating in the morning, the members of a squad agree upon a certain camping place for the night, and they then scour the country to bring the cattle together, riding perhaps sixty or eighty miles during the day.

Each ranchman knows his own cattle by the brand they bear; and since the calves follow their mothers, there is no difficulty in telling what brand shall be placed on them. After branding the calves, each ranchman drives his cattle homeward to fend during the summer within a few dozen miles of their owner's house.

SECOND ROUND-UP AND WHAT FOLLOWS

The second large round-up is similar to the first, except that its object is to bring together the steers, or male cattle, and ship them away to market; it is therefore called the beef round-up. A ranchman who owns twenty thousand cattle may sell nearly half that number in a season. As the steers are collected, they are loaded upon trains and shipped to distant cities to be slaughtered.

Very often the cattle have found so little water and such poor pasturage, that they have failed to fatten properly, and must be fed for a time before being slaughtered. This may be done upon the irrigated fields near the rivers in the ranch country; or the cattle may be sent for this purpose to the farms farther east, as in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska.

LIFE OF THE RANCHMAN

The lives of ranchmen and cowboys are interesting and often exciting, most of each day being spent in the saddle. They are so far separated from other people that they must depend upon themselves far more than most people do. For instance, a ranchman must build his house, kill his beef and dress it, put up his ice, raise his vegetables, do his blacksmithing, find his fuel, and even keep school for his children if they are to receive an education. He affords a good example of the pioneer life which was so common in early days.

This passage is quoted from the textbook, World Geographies: Second Book (p. 112-115) by Ralph S. Tarr and Frank M. McMurry, published in New York by the MacMillan Company in 1922.

Horse-drawn Hay Rake

Raking hay with horses

Photo by Howard W. Marshall, 1978, at Paradise Valley, Nevada
From the Library of Congress "Buckaroos in Paradise" collection

Old horse-drawn machinery, lined up along a fence, was a familiar sight when I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s . Most farmers and ranchers had a few relics of horse-powered equipment, like this hay rake, that were quietly rusting away.

Rakes like the one above were used in hay-making. Step 1 in the hayfield was mowing the hay and letting it dry in the sun. Step 2 -- gathering the dry hay into a windrow -- was accomplished with the hay rake. Step 3 was gathering the windrows and either making a haystack or hauling the hay to a barn.

The hay rake was pulled by one or two horses, across the mowed, dry hay, with the long, semi-circular teeth lowered to the ground. When the rake was full of hay, the teeth were raised and a windrow of hay was dumped. Then the teeth were lowered again, and the rake continued across the field, until it was full enough to dump again.

The next time the rake came across the field, its rider dumped the hay each time he came by a windrow from his first trip. In this way, the windrows were made longer and longer, until finally, all the hay was raked into long lines that stretched across the hayfield.

The man on the rake lifted the teeth with a lever. Some strength was required to operate it. He also had to be attentive in order to dump the hay exactly at the end of the windrow.

This rake looks like it might be 10 feet wide. What a radical change the tractor made in the hayfield! With tractor power, dump rakes doubled and tripled in length, greatly reducing the time required to rake a field of hay.

Related posts:
The Hayfield
Caring for Our Own

Interesting websites:
Hay in Art
Hay Time
Horse-powered Haying, 1880-1940s

Livestock Brand Laws in Kentucky

The rancher's daughter is not impressed.

I drive by this pasture on my way to and from work. Five black bulls and several donkeys have been kept there through the winter.

This bull has been freeze-branded (see image at right), but I am not sure if the brand belongs to its current owner or a former owner. Many farmers here don't bother to brand their cattle.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky has a system for brand registration. You decide what you want the brand to look like, file the papers, and pay a small fee. For the next five years, the brand is yours to use on your livestock as proof of ownership, and then you need to re-register it.

Unfortunately, Kentucky doesn't have a system for brand inspection when branded animals are bought or sold. Thus, branding doesn't provide much protection against theft. A cattle rustler can steal branded cattle, transport them elsewhere, and sell them quite easily. Unless the buyer requests a brand release, the seller doesn't have to supply one. ("Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.")

Here in Kentucky, no brand inspector ever checks the brands of cattle at sale barns. No officer ever pulls over livestock trailers on the highways to ask the hauler for brand-release papers.

In many states, altering a livestock brand is a felony. It's curious that altering a brand in Kentucky is just a misdemeanor. The fine will not be more than $200 and the jail term will not be more than 6 months. Of course, an altered brand is likely to go undetected anyhow, since we don't have brand inspectors.

One thing that provides a little protection from cattle rustlers is that Kentucky farms are small. The population density is high here, compared to major livestock producing states of the Great Plains. There's a better chance that barking dogs or an alert neighbor might warn the farmer if a thief tried to load a trailer with cattle in the night.

My dad, a cattle rancher all his life, always said that brand registration without brand inspection was a law without teeth. I am sure he was right.

(Related fact: Kentucky ranks 8th in the nation in beef production.)

Montana Shepherds of the 1940s

Earth, sky, and sheep

Lee, Russell,, 1903-, photographer. Herder with his flock of sheep on the Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana. 1942 Aug.
Image source: Library of Congress

Related image:
Another 1942 photo of a huge flock of sheep in Montana

Related post on this blog:
Montana Sheepherder's Life in 1920

Montana Sheep Herder's Life in 1920

Sheep herding on the open prairie

A sheep herder, his dogs, and his sheep
on the high plains of Montana about 1920.

This photograph is from my 1922 world geography book. The man is a sheep herder in Montana. It must have been an exciting day for him when this photograph was made. He appears to be dressed in his best suit of clothing for the occasion. The two little dogs beside him don't look much like "sheep dogs", but I'm sure he had trained them to help.

Here's the description the book gives of sheep ranching and the sheep herder's life:

A good sized sheep ranch has from twenty-five thousand to forty thousand herd of sheep. These, like cattle, may feed partly upon government land, or the "range" and partly open land fenced in and owned by the ranchman. During the coldest winter weather, when the snow may be so deep that the sheep cannot obtain food, they are often driven into protected corrals and fed on alfalfa. The fierce winds of the open plains help them, however, by drifting the snow and thus leaving open patches where they can find grass.

When the sheep are feeding on the range, one man, with a dog can herd twenty-five hundred; and if he has a horse to ride, he sometimes takes care of five thousand Selecting a spot near water for a camp, the herder drives his sheep out each morning, and back at night, going each day a distance of two or three miles from camp. When the grass is eaten in one place, the camp is moved; then from the new point as a center, they wander out as before.

The life of the herder is extremely lonely, both day and night being spent with the sheep. Once a week a man brings him food; and for weeks, and even months at a time, the only company he has aside from his sheep, is his dog and possibly his horse.

Source: World Geographies: Second Book by Ralph S. Tarr, B.S. F.G.S.A, and Frank M. McMurry, Ph. D. Copyrighted in 1920 and published in New York by the Macmillan Company in 1922.

The article says that one out of twenty sheep died during the harsh Montana winter. These animals were skinned and the hides were sent to market in early spring.

About the first of June, the sheep were sheared. To avoid the expense of transporting the wool, the sheep were often driven to the railroad over a period of weeks. They grazed along the way, moving a few miles closer to their destination each day. When they arrived at the railhead, they were sheared. The wool was pressed into bales and shipped to the eastern U.S. for manufacturing.

According to the book, some 3 to 5 year-old sheep were sold for mutton starting in July. I suppose that by mid-summer, they had regained some fat.

Article about Shovel Dot Ranch

Buell "kids" I grew up with at Rose, Nebraska

The Omaha World Herald Online has an interesting, though short, article about the Shovel Dot Ranch of southern Rock County, Nebraska and its owners, Larry and Homer Buell. Thank you, Carolyn Hall, for pointing out the article.

These guys are neighbor kids I knew in my childhood. The Buells attended a different little country school than we did, but we were all members of the Rose Scouts 4-H Club. The Shovel Dot Ranch had Hereford cattle, and the Hereford 4-H calves exhibited by the Buell kids were always some of the best at the KBR 4-H calf shows.

Larry is my age, and he was in the same grade as me. Homer (or "Skip", as we called him then) was a couple years older. An older brother, Roger, was about the same age as my older brother. Sadly, Roger was killed by lightning as a young man. Their sister Jan was the oldest, a few years older than my brother.

In the article, Homer mentions that solitude is a natural part of the lifestyle at a Sandhills ranch. He is right. Children who grow up on ranches learn to be self-reliant at both work and play. They know how to be alone. It is a useful skill.

I think the Buells own some of the pasture land (the old Haskins place) that my family used to own, south of the Calamus River in Loup County, where the sweet red plums grow.

Declining Role of Horses and Mules in the 1920s

The horse vs. the tractor and the automobile

I have an old book,The New Agriculture For High School, that was published in 1923 (the year that my mother and father were born.)

The book is interesting because it includes the most modern information of the time, based on the best and latest scientific knowledge. One thing that has changed greatly since then is the use of horses and mules in farming.

In 1923, automobiles and gas-powered tractors were not new inventions. They had been around for at least 25 years, and farmers were beginning to rely on them for both transportation and work.

The breeding of horses and mules seems now to be less profitable than formerly. The use of automobiles for pleasure and business and the use of tractors and motors for farm work have seriously affected the horse-producing industry, in recent years.

Source: The New Agriculture for High Schools (p.385) by Kary Cadmus Davis, Ph. D., published in 1923 by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.

Draft horses of the 1920s

The author writes about four main breeds of draft horses ("work horses.") Percherons were the most popular breed. They were large, but low-set. Belgian horses were second in popularity. They were also large, compact horses and their legs were even shorter than Percherons.

Clydesdales, a larger breed than Percherons or Belgians, were mostly popular in eastern Canada. Shires were also larger horses. The author describes them as heavy-legged, big footed, and clumsy, the least popular of the main draft horse breeds.

Coach horses of the 1920s

Horse-drawn cabs and coaches were also used less, as motor vehicles became more common. According to the author, coach horses were smaller than draft horses and were capable of hauling a medium load at a moderate trot. These horses pulled stage coaches, fire engines, and delivery wagons. They were also the horses who went to war as workhorses.

I am not familiar with any of the breeds mentioned: Cleveland Bay, German Coach, French Coach, Hackney (listed from largest to smallest in size.) Several of these breeds have become so rare in 2007 that purebreeds are in danger of completely disappearing.

Light horses, ponies, and mules of the 1920s

Smaller horse breeds are mentioned (Thoroughbreds, American Saddler, Standardbred, Morgan, Arabian, Orloff Trotter), and then ponies are discussed (Welsh, Exmoor, Arabian, Hackney, Mexican, Indian). Lastly, the author turns his attention to mules.

The mule is much used in American agriculture for field work, particularly in southern states, and is used in mines everwhere. Other forms of motive power are not likely to supplant the mule.

Source: The New Agriculture for High Schools (p.392) by Kary Cadmus Davis, Ph. D., published in 1923 by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.

The author mentions several general classes of mules. Plantation mules were small fine-boned mules used for sugar and cotton. Mine mules and lumber mules were larger, heavier-boned mules obtained by breeding a draft mare and a large jack (male donkey.)

If you have a few minutes, I hope you'll take a look at some of the interesting pages I've linked, particularly of the lesser-known horse breeds. If you have just one minute, be sure to read the account of the life of the mine mule.

Technorati tags: work horses, workhorses, coach horses, draft horses, Clydesdales, Percherons, Belgians, Shires, mules, 1920s, impact of the automobile, impact of the tractor

How Lariats Are Made

Some Interesting News...

The Billings Gazette (Billings, Montana) has an interesting article: "King's Saddlery Knows the Ropes." It's about King's Saddlery and King Ropes in Sheridan, Wyoming, and it describes the process of making a fine lariat. I think you'll enjoy the article if you're interested in western history and lore.

Thanks to Sarpy Sam at Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere for posting the link.

Technorati tags: handmade, lariat making, rope making, lariat, rope, King's Saddlery, King Rope,