I always feel very lenient when I see the cowboy on the screen for
one of the handsomest, cleanest, most picturesque men I ever met was
a real working cowboy south of the town of Herbert. He overtook me
on the trail. He had been into town in his full rig, and he was the screen
cowboy des riguer. We had a chat and I found he was an American,
born in the Territory of Idaho. But let us see what a man like Kootenay
Brown has to say about the cowboy, in the "Nor-West Farmer".
"Not the kind you see in the pictures, shooting up towns and staking
their last cent on the high card, but the kind who, when the snow melted
from the hills and the grass got a good start, buckled on his belt for a
hard summer's work. In Southern Alberta the spring round-up, as well
as for branding, was a beef round-up too. The usual mild winter in those
days, good pasture for stock made beef, and this beef had to be cut out
and rounded-up for shipping. Then in the fall there was another round-
up for beef only. These round-ups while interesting were hard work.
Range cattle in those days never saw a person from one round-up to an-
other, and were as wild as deer. A whole herd has been stampeded by
the fright of one animal, at the rustling of a slicker coat, a bird flying
up suddenly or any little thing. Driving to the railway, we would make
about five or six miles and the herd would be bedded down with a night-
herder in charge.
"I remember how these fellows used to dress. A lot of people think
many of the things a cowboy wears or uses are purely ornamental. This
is wrong. There is scarcely a thing the cowboy wears that is different
from the ordinary apparel of anyone else, that is not absolutely necessary.
I don't mean the bums you see drinking around the bars; but the man
on the range, the real cowboy.
"One thing necessary is the big handkerchief around the neck. Did
you ever ride behind a thousand head of steers" If you did you would
know how difficult it was to breathe, and I have no doubt you coughed
and took out your handkerchief and covered your nose and mouth. That's
what the handkerchief on the cowboy's neck is for. You notice that he
wears it with the knot behind, leaving the wide part free in front. When
he needs it it is there to use without the necessity of getting into his pocket
for it, and if his hands are at work with a rope he just ties the kerchief
around his nose and mouth as he goes to it.
"Then he wears heavy leather cuffs. Did you evertake a rope in your
hands when your catch was trying to run away from you" Just let it
slip a little and you will know what happens. Well that's what the cuffs
are for. If the whirling lasso were to run over the roper's arm it would
cut it to the bone. So he wears gloves on his hands and cuffs on his
wrists.
"I always wore a sombrero because it is the most useful kind of hat
for the prairie, or the mountain either, for that matter. The broad brim
keeps off the scorching sun of the Alberta prairie and shelters the wearer
from rain when he runs into wet weather. The hat is held on by a 'G'
string. That's what it is called. Without it the hat would be off the head
as often as on, for in this part of Alberta the wind blows all the time.
It's called 'Sunny Alberta'. It is sunny too, but it's windy. The 'G'
string keeps the wind from blowing the sombrero off, and under the feet
of the cattle.
"The high heeled boots are a necessity. Henry Riverie or 'Frenchy'
as we called him is a great fellow for high heeled boots. He is a great
rider, too. I've seen 'Frenchy' take an outlaw that no one could or would
ride, work around him a few days in the corral, finally put a saddle on him
all alone, mount him and fill his pipe on his back, and never a buck out of
the horse. High heels keep the feet from slipping through the stirrups
when a horse is bucking, and often save a rider from being caught in
the stirrups when thrown and possibly dragged to death.
"And he carried a 'bull-whip'. In a herd of cattle there are always
a few mean ones that will, on the slightest provocation, start a stam-
pede. One end of the bull-whip is loaded and when the rider sees trouble
brewing he spots the bad steer, and riding up to him gives him the weight
of the butt end of the whip, usually bringing him to his knees. The lash
he uses for clipping tardy ones on the nose to hurry them up and to re-
mind any that might stray from the herd that their place is with the
bunch.
"Of course the cowboy likes a good saddle. He lives in the saddle, and
we always like to make the place we live as comfortable as possible. The
trimmings of the saddle are incidental. The money invested is really in
the leather and frame. The seat must be strong and the horn must be
strong enough that the horse can put all his weight on the rope tied to it
when holding or hauling a steer.
"The cowboy has a fine bridle. Plaited hair for special occasions is very
popular, and some have put as much as one hundred dollars into a bridle
alone. Spurs are sometimes silver plated, but what of that" These things
are part of the working equipment of the cow-puncher and he has a per-
fect right to have them the very best.
"These round-ups were hard work, meant long hours in all sorts of
weather, but I always look back over them as bright spots in every ranch-
er's life. There are many of the prominent men of Alberta today who at
that time saddled their horses in the early morning and rode all day after
cows. But the cowboy's day is past, for the open range is gone. There
are no more round-ups; no more steers to rope and brand. 'The Ranch'
today is a farm; in fact, people with one old cow and no broken land will
talk about 'the ranch'."
SHEEP.
One of the first large ventures in sheep-ranching was that made by
the British American Ranching Company which brought in about eight
thousand well-bred sheep from Montana to the Cochrane country, and also
sent up from their ranches in the east about a hundred Shropshire rams
which they had imported from England. The Lister Kaye Company
brought in 18,000 sheep from Washington to Maple Creek. In 1885 there
were not enough sheep in Manitoba to supply the Winnipeg market with
mutton, and it was recorded that from $50,000 to $60,000 was the year's
butcher bill of that small city for mutton and lamb. Not very long
after this date sheep raising in the Territories began to assume promising
proportions. The French Counts were raising sheep in the Moose Moun-
tain, and Mr. Joe Dixon had moved from Whitewood into the Maple
Creek district and started a sheep ranch. Cattle and sheep cannot be run
together and eventually a sheep district was marked out. The ups and
downs in the markets for wool and mutton forced a good many people
out of the business, and a good many discovered that to run a big herd
of sheep successfully required some special knowledge. In 1905 there
were only about 120,000 sheep in the new province. In 1911 the number
was 114,000; in 1922 it had reached 192,000.
HOGS.
It is an extraordinary fact that there are wheat farms on which you
will not find a hog, a hen or a cow. The farmer buys his milk, butter, eggs
and bacon, and the bacon may come from Chicago. The call for extended
mixed farming has a great deal to recommend it, but if those who advo-
cate it so enthusiastically knew a little about it personally they would
moderate their transports. For a small farmer to raise grain, roots,
hay, garden stuff, horses, cattle, hogs, poultry, to milk cows the year
round, and muck out their stables for six months in the year, to make
butter, and to find a profitable market for all, means perpetual drudgery
in a land where cheap labor doesn't exist, both for himself, his wife, and
every child who is big enough to milk a cow or sit on a hay-rake. There
is no rest season for the mixed farmer; and, personally, I have some
sympathy with the grower who takes his chance on the wheat and does
get a little leisure in the long winter months.
The hog industry is dependent a good deal on the wheat. If the wheat
is a good price many farmers prefer to sell it, instead of feeding it to
hogs. If the crop is plentiful in bushels but with a percentage of it
damaged these men will keep a few hogs if they can get hold of them,
but they will not make a business of it if they can help it. The result is
that we have a great many more human beings in Saskatchewan than we
have swine. The Pat Burns and Swift firms provide a local market, but
in a grain raising country like this the export of prime bacon should be
an important industry. In the eighties Mr. Humphrys, an Englishman
of the famed Cannington Manor settlement, went in for making prime
"English" bacon, and we can personally testify that it was equal to the
well known "Wiltshire breakfast". He had a ready market for all he
could produce, but unfortunately in a few years he passed away, and the
pioneer bacon industry died with him. The figures tell their own tale.
When the province was formed it was estimated that we had 121,000
swine. In five years, during which the acreage under crop increased tre-
mendously the hog product a little more than doubled. In the war, under
the stimulus of very high prices it reached 531,000 in 1916; 573,000 in
1917; sunk to 521,000 in 1918; to 433,000 in 1919; and to 321,000 in
1920; took a turn up to 433,000 in 1921, and jumped to 563,000 in 1922.
This is a wonderfully poor showing for the "granary of the British Em-
pire". The wheat man should raise a few hogs at any rate, if only to
prove the purity and reality of his patriotism. It may be too much to
ask him to humiliate himself by "pulling teats", but he might shovel a
little grain to a bunch of hogs.
TERRIBLE LOSSES OF A CATTLE COMPANY.
Under the above heading the Nor-West Farmer for June, 1888, has
the following: the horrible part of which is not the financial loss, but
the fact that this loss means that in two winters some thirty-two thousand
head of cattle were starved or frozen to death on one ranch.
"The report of the directors of the Powder River Cattle Company for
the past year shows a very dolorous state of matters. The Company was
formed in August, 1882, and the result of its working is that the ordinary
capital of "200,000 had been altogether lost and that "4 per share of the
preference shares had gone with the ordinary capital. Altogether, the com-
bined losses of the Company are upwards of "260,000. Debts to the
amount of "25,000 are due by the Company, and if these are not met at
once the creditors will proceed to realize on what remains of the property.
The preference shareholders are, therefore, called upon to assess them-
selves at the rate of "2.lOs per share, in order to clear off the debt and
save the wreck of their property from a forced sale. In 1883 the estimated
herd of the Company was 49,113. In November, 1886, the herd was esti-
inated at 43,000, and "65,000 was written down for loss on cattle. In
the report now issued the number of the herd, including calves, is entered
at 17,805, and "146,321 is added to the loss on cattle carried forward from
the previous year. This makes a loss on cattle in two years of "214,379.
A special experiment by the Company in cattle-feeding was not fortu-
nate. The cost of feeding 2,838 animals was "20,849, and the price ob-
tained for the cattle was "24,043, leaving a balance of only "3,194."
Bibliography follows: