They Had
Stewed Venison And Various Luxuries On The Table, Which Was
Tasteful And Refined, And An Adroit, Colored Table-Maid Waited,
One Of Five Attached Negro Servants Who Had Been Their Slaves
Before The War.
After dinner, though snow was slowly falling, a
gentleman cousin took me a ride to show me the beauties of
Pleasant Park, which takes rank among the finest scenery of
Colorado, and in good weather is very easy of access.
It did
look very grand as we entered it by a narrow pass guarded by two
buttes, or isolated upright masses of rock, bright red, and about
300 feet in height. The pines were very large, and the narrow
canyons which came down on the park gloomily magnificent. It is
remarkable also from a quantity of "monumental" rocks, from 50 to
300 feet in height, bright vermilion, green, buff, orange, and
sometimes all combined, their gay tinting a contrast to the
disastrous-looking snow and the somber pines. Bear Canyon, a
gorge of singular majesty, comes down on the park, and we crossed
the Bear Creek at the foot of this on the ice, which gave way,
and both our horses broke through into pretty deep and very cold
water, and shortly afterwards Birdie put her foot into a prairie
dog's hole which was concealed by the snow, and on recovering
herself fell three times on her nose. I thought of Bishop
Wilberforce's fatal accident from a smaller stumble, and felt
sure that he would have kept his seat had he been mounted, as I
was, on a Mexican saddle. It was too threatening for a long
ride, and on returning I passed into a region of vivacious
descriptions of Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, Turkey, Russia, and
other countries, in which Miss Perry had traveled with her family
for three years.
Perry's Park is one of the great cattle-raising ranches in
Colorado. This, the youngest State in the Union, a Territory
until quite recently, has an area of about 68,000,000 acres, a
great portion of which, though rich in mineral wealth, is
worthless either for stock or arable farming, and the other or
eastern part is so dry that crops can only be grown profitably
where irrigation is possible. 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.
The Colorado cattle are either pure Texan or Spanish, or crosses
between the Texan and graded shorthorns. They are nearly all
very inferior animals, being bony and ragged. The herds mix on
the vast plains at will; along the Arkansas valley 80,000 roam
about with the freedom of buffaloes, and of this number about
16,000 are exported every fall. Where cattle are killed for use
in the mining districts their average price is three cents per
lb. In the summer thousands of yearlings are driven up from
Texas, branded, and turned loose on the prairies, and are not
molested again till they are sent east at three or four years
old. These pure Texans, the old Spanish breed, weigh from 900 to
1,000 pounds, and the crossed Colorado cattle from 1,000 to 1,200
pounds.
The "Cattle King" of the State is Mr. Iliff, of South Platte, who
owns nine ranches, with runs of 15,000 acres, and 35,000 cattle.
He is improving his stock; and, indeed, the opening of the
dead-meat trade with this country is giving a great impetus to
the improvement of the breed of cattle among all the larger and
richer stock-owners. For this enormous herd 40 men are employed
in summer, about 12 in winter, and 200 horses. In the rare case
of a severe and protracted snowstorm the cattle get a little hay.
Owners of 6,000, 8,000 and 10,000 head of cattle are quite common
in Colorado. Sheep are now raised in the State to the extent of
half a million, and a chronic feud prevails between the "sheep
men" and the "cattle men." Sheep-raising is said to be a very
profitable business, but its risks and losses are greater, owing
to storms, while the outlay for labor, dipping materials, etc.,
is considerably larger, and owing to the comparative inability of
sheep to scratch away the snow from the grass, hay has to be
provided to meet the emergency of very severe snow-storms. The
flocks are made up mostly of pure and graded Mexicans; but though
some flocks which have been graded carefully for some years show
considerable merit, the average sheep is a leggy, ragged beast.
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