This Region Is Watered By The
South Fork Of The Platte And Its Affluents, And, Though Subject
To The Grasshopper Pest, It Produces Wheat Of The Finest Quality,
The Yield Varying According To The Mode Of Cultivation From
Eighteen To Thirty Bushels Per Acre.
The necessity for
irrigation, however, will always bar the way to an indefinite
extension of the area of arable farms.
The prospects of
cattle-raising seem at present practically unlimited. In 1876
Colorado had 390,728, valued at L2:13s. per head, about half of
which were imported as young beasts from Texas. The climate is
so fine and the pasturage so ample that shelter and hand-feeding
are never resorted to except in the case of imported breeding
stock from the Eastern States, which sometimes in severe winters
need to be fed in sheds for a short time. Mr. Perry devotes
himself mainly to the breeding of graded shorthorn bulls, which
he sells when young for L6 per head.
The cattle run at large upon the prairies; each animal being
branded, they need no herding, and are usually only mustered,
counted, and the increase branded in the summer. In the fall,
when three or four years old, they are sold lean or in tolerable
condition to dealers who take them by rail to Chicago, or
elsewhere, where the fattest lots are slaughtered for tinning or
for consumption in the Eastern cities, while the leaner are sold
to farmers for feeding up during the winter. Some of the
wealthier stockmen take their best lots to Chicago themselves.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 158 of 274
Words from 43242 to 43502
of 74789
