Buffalo Land Part 28

"There is no reason why domestic cattle may not take their place. The climate, soil, and vegetation are as well adapted to the tame as to the wild. The latter lived and thrived the year round all the way up to lat.i.tude fifty degrees north. Twenty years' experience proves that the former do equally well upon the same range, and with the same lack of care. Time, the settlement of the country, the growing wants of agriculture, the encroachment of tilled fields, will gradually narrow the range, as did semi-civilization that of the buffalo--first from the Mississippi Valley westward, where that process is already seen, and then from the Rocky Mountains toward the east; but as yet the range is practically unlimited, and for many years to come there will be room to fatten beeves to feed the world.

"This great pasture land covers Western Texas, Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota, Eastern New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, and extends far into British America. The southerly and south-easterly portions produce the largest growth of gra.s.s, but it lacks the nutritious qualities of that covering the higher and drier lands farther north and west. Rank-growing and bottom-land gra.s.ses contain mostly water: they remain green until killed by frost, when their substance flows back to the root, or is destroyed by the action of the elements. The dwarf gra.s.s of the higher plains makes but a small growth, but makes that very quickly in the early spring, and then, as the rains diminish and the summer heat increases, it dies and cures into hay where it stands; the seed even, in which it is very prolific, remains upon the stalk, and, though very minute, is exceedingly nutritious.

"In so far as the relative advantages of different portions of this wide region may be thought by many to preponderate over one another, we do not appreciate them at all, but would as soon risk a herd in the valley of the Upper Missouri, the Yellowstone, or the Saskachewan, as along the Arkansas, the Canadian, or Red River. If any difference, the gra.s.s is better north than south. One year the winter may be more severe in the extreme north; the next it may be equally so in the south; and the third it may be most inclement midway between the two extremes; or, what is more common, the severe storms and heavy snows may follow irregular streaks across the country at various points. There are local causes and effects to be considered, such as permanently affect certain localities favorably or the contrary. For instance, nearer the western border of the plains there is less high wind, because the lofty mountain ranges form a shelter or wind breaker. Of local advantages, detached ranges of mountains, hills, or broken land, timber, brush, and deep ravines or stream-beds are the most important in furnishing shelter, and, as a general thing, better and always more varied pasture ground.

"There is never rain upon the middle and northern plains during the winter months. When snow comes it is always dry, and never freezes to stock. The reverse is the case in the Northern and Middle States, where winter storms often begin with rain, which is followed by snow, and conclude with piercing wind and exceeding cold. Stock men can readily appreciate the effect of such weather upon stock exposed to its influence.

"The soil of the plains is very much the same every-where. To a casual observer it looks sterile and unpromising, but, when turned by the plow or spade, is found very fertile. Near the mountains it is filled with coa.r.s.e rock particles, and under the action of the elements these become disproportionately prominent on the surface. Receding from the mountains, it becomes gradually finer, until gravel and bits of broken stone are no longer seen. Being made up from the wash and wearing away of the mountains, alkaline earths enter largely into its composition, supplying inexhaustible quant.i.ties of those properties which the eastern farmer can secure only by the application of plaster, lime, and like manures. These make the rich, nutritious gra.s.ses upon which cattle thrive so remarkably, and to the constant wonder of new-comers, who can not reconcile the idea of such comparatively bare and barren-looking plains with the fat cattle that roam over them.

"Besides the plains, there is a vast extent of pasture-lands in the mountains. Wherever there is soil enough to support vegetation, gra.s.s is found in abundance, to a line far above the limit of timber growth, and almost to the crest of the snowy range. These high pastures, however, are suitable only for summer and autumn range; but in portions of the great parks and large valleys, most parts of which lie below eight thousand feet alt.i.tude above the sea, cattle, horses, and sheep live and thrive the year round. The cost of raising a steer to the age of five years, when he is at a prime age for market, is believed to be about seven dollars and a half, or one dollar and a half per year. A number of estimates given us by stock men, running through several years, place the average at about that figure. That contemplates a herd of four hundred or more. Smaller lots of cattle will generally cost relatively more. The items of expense are herding, branding, and salt--nothing for feed."

THE CATTLE-HIVE OF NORTH AMERICA.

In this connection we may very properly quote from the same writer the following paragraph in regard to the source from whence all the cattle are now brought--that great natural breeding ground, the prairie land of Texas.

"Texas is truly the cattle-hive of North America. While New York, with her 4,000,000 inhabitants, and her settlements two and a half centuries old, has 748,000 oxen and stock cattle; while Pennsylvania, with more than 3,000,000 people, has 721,000 cattle; while Ohio, with 3,000,000 people, has 749,000 cattle; while Illinois, with 2,800,000 people, has 867,000 cattle; and while Iowa, with 1,200,000 people, has 686,000 cattle; Texas, forty years of age, and with her 500,000 people, had 2,000,000 head of oxen and other cattle, exclusive of cows, in 1867, as shown by the returns of the county a.s.sessors.

"In 1870, allowing for the difference between the actual number of cattle owned and the number returned for taxation, there must be fully 3,000,000 head of beeves and stock cattle. This is exclusive of cows, which, at the same time, are reported at 600,000 head. In 1870 they must number 800,000--making a grand total of 3,800,000 head of cattle in Texas. One-fourth of these are beeves, one-fourth are cows, and the other two-fourths are yearlings and two-year olds.

"There would, therefore, be 950,000 beeves, 950,000 cows, and 1,900,000 young cattle. There are annually raised and branded 750,000 calves.

These cattle are raised on the great plains of Texas, which contain 152,000,000 acres. In the vast regions watered by the Rio Grande, Nueces, Guadalupe, San Antonio, Colorado, Leon, Brazos, Trinity, Sabine, and Red Rivers, these millions of cattle graze upon almost tropical growths of vegetation. They are owned by the ranchmen, who own from 1,000 to 75,000 head each."

As specimen ranches, may be named the following: Santa Catrutos Ranch belongs to Richard King. Amount of land, 84,132 acres. The stock consists of 65,000 cattle, 10,000 horses, 7,000 sheep, 8,000 goats.

Three hundred Mexicans are employed, and 1,000 saddle horses, on the place. O'Connor's ranch, near Goliad, is an estate possessing about 50,000 cattle. The Robideaux ranch, on the Gulf, belonging to Mr.

Kennedy, contains 142,840 acres of land, and has 30,000 beef cattle in addition to other stock.

THE CLIMATE OF THE PLAINS.

Mr. R. S. Elliott, who has studied this matter carefully, says: "The plains have been so often described as a rainless region that great misconception in regard to the climate has prevailed. The absolute precipitation is much greater than has been in past years supposed, and is due to other causes. Meteorologists who have described the rain-fall of the plains as derived only or princ.i.p.ally from the remaining moisture of winds from the Pacific, after the pa.s.sage of the Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges, have been greatly in error, and the better conclusion now is, with all authorities who have given any special attention to the subject, that the moisture which fertilizes the Mississippi Valley, including the broad, gra.s.sy plains, is derived from the Gulf of Mexico.

"At Fort Riley about sixty-nine per cent, of the annual precipitation is in spring and summer; at Fort Kearney, eighty-one; and at Fort Laramie, seventy-two per cent. From observations at Forts Harker, Hays, and Wallace, on the line of this road, the same rule seems to hold good.

Records have not been long enough continued at these three posts to give a long average, but the mean appears to be between seventeen and nineteen inches at Hays and Wallace, and possibly rather more at Harker.

The actual average for 1868 and 1869 at Hays is 18.76 inches, and for the first six months of 1870 the record is 10.68 inches. At Wallace the record for 1869 was over seventeen inches, and in 1870, up to October 1, about the same amount had fallen.

"Without records there can be only conjecture; and I can only remark that there does not seem to be much diminution in the annual rain-fall until we get as far west as the one hundred and third meridian. Thence to the base of the mountains (except perhaps in the timbered portions of the great divide south of the line of this railway) the annual average may be possibly two or three inches less than in the midst of the plains--a peculiarity explained, hypothetically, by the fact that the region 'lies to the westward of the general course of the moisture currents of air flowing northward from the Gulf of Mexico, and is so near the mountains as to lose much of the precipitation that localities in the plains east and north-east are favored with. The mountains seem to exercise an influence--electrical and magnetical--in attracting moisture, which is condensed in the cooler regions of their summits, while the plains at their feet may be parched and heated to excess.'

This explanation may be fanciful, but the fact remains that near the mountains the rains seem to decrease north of the great divide; fortunately, however, this occurs in a region where irrigation may be applied extensively and where there is sufficient moisture to nourish bountiful crops of gra.s.s.

"The vegetation of the plains along wagon tracks and rail road embankments shows a capability of production scarcely suggested by the surface where undisturbed: wherever the earth is broken up, the wild sunflower (_Helianthus_), and others of the taller-growing plants, though previously unknown in the vicinity, at once spring up.

"I have been on the plains all the time since early in May till this date (22d of September). There has been much dry weather, but I have not seen one cloudless day--no day on which the sun would rise clear and roll along a canopy of bra.s.s to the west. There has always been humidity enough to form clouds at the proper height; and on many days they would be seen defining, by their flat bottoms, the exact line where condensation became sufficient to render the vapor visible. I conclude, from all this, that abundant moisture has floated over the plains to have given us a great deal more rain than would be desirable if it had been precipitated.

"Sometimes a storm would be seen to gather near the horizon, and we could see the rain pending from the clouds like a fringe, hanging apparently in mid-air, unable to reach the expectant earth. The rain stage of condensation had been reached above, but the descending shower was re-vaporized apparently, and thus arrested.

"These hot winds are not, so far as I have observed, apt to be constant in one place for any considerable length of time; they strike your face suddenly, and perhaps in a minute are gone. They seem to run along in streaks or _ovenfulls_ with the winds of ordinary (but rather high) temperature. They do not begin, I believe, till in July, as a general rule, and are over by September 1, or perhaps by August 15. Their origin I take to be, of course, in heated regions south or southwest of us; but their peculiar occurrence, so capricious and often so brief, I can not explain to myself satisfactorily.

"I may remark that this season, since about the 15th of July, in these distant plains, has given us rain enough to make beautifully verdant the spots in the prairie burnt off during the 'heated' term in July. From Kit Carson eastward, the rains have been, I think, exceptionally abundant. All through the summer we have had _dew_ occasionally, and it has been remarked that buffalo meat has been more difficult of preservation than heretofore--facts indicative of humidity in the atmosphere, even where but little rain-fall was witnessed. Turnips sown in August would have made a crop in this vicinity--four hundred and twenty-two miles west of the state line of Missouri,"

CLIMATIC CHANGES ON THE PLAINS.

"Facts such as these," continues the same writer, "seem to sustain the popular persuasion that a _climatic change_ is taking place, promoted by the spread of settlements westwardly, breaking up portions of the prairie soil, covering the earth with plants that shade the ground more than the short gra.s.ses; thus checking or modifying the reflection of heat from the earth's surface, etc. The fact is also noted that even where the prairie soil is not disturbed, the short buffalo gra.s.s disappears as the 'frontier' extends westward, and its place is taken by gra.s.ses and other herbage of taller growth. That this change of the clothing of the plains, if sufficiently extensive, might have a modifying influence on the climate, I do not doubt; but whether the change has been already spread over a large enough area, and whether our apparently or really wetter seasons may not be part of a cycle, are unsettled questions.

"The civil engineers of the railways believe that the rains and humidity of the plains have increased during the extension of railroads and telegraphs across them. If this is the case, it may be that the mysterious electrical influence in which they seem to have faith, but do not profess to explain, has exercised a beneficial influence. What effect, if any, the digging and grading, the iron rails, the tension of steam in locomotives, the friction of metallic surfaces, the poles and wires, the action of batteries, etc., could possibly or probably have on the electrical conditions, as connected with the phenomena of precipitation, I do not, of course, undertake to say. It may be that wet seasons have merely happened to coincide with railroads and telegraphs.

It is to be observed that the poles of the telegraph are quite frequently destroyed by lightning; and it is probable that the lightning thus strikes in many places where before the erection of the telegraph it was not apt to strike, and perhaps would not reach the earth at all.

"It is certain that rains have increased; this increase has coincided with the extension of settlements, railroads, and telegraphs. If influenced by these, the change of climate will go on; if by extra mundane influences, the change may be permanent, progressive, or retrograde. I think there are good grounds to believe it will be progressive. Within the last fifteen years, in Western Missouri and Iowa, and in Eastern Kansas and Nebraska, a very large aggregate surface has been broken up, and holds more of the rains than formerly.

During the same period modifying influences have been put in motion in Montana, Utah, and Colorado. Very small areas of timbered land west of the Missouri have been cleared--not equal, perhaps, to the area of forest, orchard, and vineyards planted. Hence it may be said that all the acts of man in this vast region have tended to produce conditions on the earth's surface ameliorative of the climate. With extended settlements on the Arkansas, Canadian, and Red River of the south, as well as on the Arkansas, on the river system of the Kaw Valley, and on the Platte, the ameliorating conditions will be extended in like degree; and it partakes more of sober reason than wild fancy to suppose that a permanent and beneficial change of climate may be experienced. The appalling deterioration of large portions of the earth's surface, through the acts of man in destroying the forests, justifies the trust that the culture of taller herbage and trees in a region heretofore covered mainly by short gra.s.ses may have a converse effect. Indeed, in Central Kansas nature seems to almost precede settlements by the taller gra.s.ses and herbage."

THE TREES AND FUTURE FORESTS OF THE PLAINS.

Mr. Elliott continues his article as follows: "The princ.i.p.al native trees on the plains west of ninety-seventh meridian are: Cottonwood, walnut, elm, ash, box-elder, hackberry, plum, red cedar. To these may be added willow and grape-vines, and also the locust and wild cherry mentioned by Abert as occurring on the Purgatory. The black walnut extends to the one-hundredth meridian. The elm and ash are of similar, perhaps greater range. Hackberry has been observed west of one hundred and first meridian. Cottonwood, elder, red cedar, plum, and willow are persistent to the base of the mountains. The extensive pine forest on the 'great divide' south of Denver, although stretching seventy to eighty miles east from the mountains, is not taken into view as belonging to the plains proper. Its existence, however, suggests the use of its seeds in artificial plantations in that region. The fossil wood imbedded in the cretaceous strata in many parts of the plains is left out of consideration, as belonging to a previous, though recent, geological age; but the single specimens of trees found growing at wide intervals are silent witnesses to the _possibility_ of extended forest growth.

"Were it possible to break up the surface to a depth of two feet, from the ninety-seventh meridian to the mountains, and from the thirty-fifth to the forty-fifth parallel, we should have in a single season a growth of taller herbage over the entire area, less reflection of the sun's heat, more humidity in the atmosphere, more constancy in springs, pools, and streams, more frequent showers, fewer violent storms, and less caprice and fury in the winds. A single year would witness a changed vegetation and a new climate. In three years (fires kept out) there would be young trees in numerous places, and in twenty years there would be fair young forests. The description of the 'broad, gra.s.sy plains,'

given in the foregoing pages, attests their capacity to sustain animal life. For cattle, sheep, horses, and mules, they are a natural pasture in summer, with (in many parts) hay cured standing for winter. The famed Pampas, with their great extremes of wet and drought, can not bear comparison with our western plains. For grazing purposes, the habitable character of our vast traditional 'desert' is generally conceded, and hence it need not be enlarged on here."

THE SUPPLY OF FUEL.

Of the question of fuel for the future dwellers upon the face of Buffalo Land, Hayden, in his report, speaks as follows:

"The question often arises in the minds of visitors to this region, how the law of compensation supplies the want of fuel in the absence of trees for that use. Many persons have taken the position that the Creator never made such a vast country, with a soil of such wonderful fertility, and rendered it so suitable for the abode of man, without storing in the earth beds of carbon for his needs. If this idea could be shown to be true in any case, we would ask why are the immense beds of coal stored away in the mountains of Pennsylvania and Virginia, while at the same time the surface is covered with dense forests of timber. We now know that this law does not apply to the natural world; and, if it did, this western country would be a remarkable exception. The State of Nebraska seems to be located on the western rim of the great coal basin of the West, and only thin seams of poor coal will probably ever be found; but in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming, and Colorado, coal in immense quant.i.ties has been hidden away for ages, and the Union Pacific Railroad has now brought it near the door of every man's dwelling.

"These Rocky Mountain coal-beds will one day supply an abundance of fuel for more than one hundred thousand square miles along the Missouri River of the most fertile agricultural land in the world."

Of this coal area, Persifor Frazier, Jr., says: "Those beds which occur on the east flank of the Rocky Mountains have been followed for five hundred miles and more, north and south; and if it be true that these are 'fragments of one great basin, interrupted here and there by the upheaval of mountain chains, or concealed by the deposition of newer formations,' then their extension east and west, or from the eastern range of the Rocky Mountains or Black Hills to Weber Canyon, where an excellent coal is mined, will fall but little short of five hundred miles. Throughout this extent these beds of coal are found between the upper cretaceous and lower tertiary (or in the transition beds of Hayden), wherever these transition beds occur, whether on the extreme flanks or in the valleys and parks between the numerous mountain ranges.

a.s.suming that the eroding agencies together have cut off one-half of the coal from this area, and taking one-half of the remainder as their average longitudinal extent, we have over fifty thousand square miles of coal lands, accounting the lat.i.tudinal extent as only five hundred miles; whereas we have no reason to believe that it terminates within these bounds, but, on the contrary, good reason for supposing that it extends northward far into Canada, and southward with the Cordilleras.

All this territory has been omitted in the estimate of the extent of our coal fields."

DISTRICTS CONTIGUOUS TO THE PLAINS.

The reader has now had the salient features of the great plains placed before him in succession. The more interesting districts immediately adjoining will well repay the reader for a brief consideration.

THE NORTH PLATTE DISTRICT.

A late writer, who has studied the country of which he speaks very closely,[6] thus describes the North Platte District:

[6] Dr. H. Latham, under date June 5th, 1870, in the Omaha Daily Herald.

"The distance from the mouth of the North Platte, where it joins the South Platte on the Union Pacific Railroad, to its sources in the great Sierra Madre, whose lofty sides form the North Park, in which this stream takes its rise, is more than eight hundred miles. Its extreme southern tributaries head in the gorges of the mountains one hundred miles south of the railroad, and receive their water from the melting snows of these snow-capped ranges. Its extreme western tributaries rise in the Wahsatch and Wind River ranges, sharing the honor of conveying the crystal snow waters from the continental divide with the Columbia and Colorado of the Pacific. Its northern tributaries start oceanward from the Big Horn Mountains, three hundred miles north of the starting-point of its southern sources.

"It drains a country larger than all New England and New York together.

East of the Alleghany Mountains there is no river comparable to this clear, swift mountain stream in its length or in the extent of country it drains.

"The main valley of the North Platte, two hundred miles from its mouth to where it debouches through the Black Hills out on to the great plains, is an average of ten miles wide. Nearly all this area--two thousand square miles--is covered with a dense growth of gra.s.s, yielding thousands of tons of hay. The bluffs bordering these intervals are rounded and gra.s.s-grown, gradually smoothing out into great gra.s.sy plains, extending north and south as far as the eye can see.