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One of the round-ups of cattle still go ing on in forest ranges.

ble to raise an umbrella. Then they became disgusted and quit. But the range was spoiled.

Just here is the hitch, and the reason why so many cattlemen have sold out within the last decade. The settlers have taken up the fertile river bottom land, and have fenced it, thus keeping the range stock from the water. Consequently the uplands, fit for nothing but grazing, have been, in a great many places, abandoned, and now lie absolutely unused.

It must not be supposed, however, that because there are not so many big ranches now as formerly that the cattle industry is on the decline. On the contrary, those farmers who have taken up claims in the West are gradually becoming convinced that it is no farming country-at least for the poor

man.

In the western part of Nebraska lies a tract of country known locally as "the sandhills." When I visited it five years ago, the "Kincaiders," (homesteaders under the Kincaid law, which allows each homesteader a full section in that district) were numerous and on the increase. One particular locality contained sixteen claims, joining

each other. It certainly looked as if the cattle industry was doomed, in that country at least. To-day, only three of those sixteen remain. The rest have gone back East, where it is easier to raise a living.

Another abandoned homestead, in Keya Paha County, bore this legend, nailed to the shack door:

Fifteen Miles to the Postoffice
Fifty Miles to the Railroad
Two Hundred and Fifty Feet to Water
And Six Inches to Hell.
I'm Going Back to Missouri.

Statistics show that the number of beef cattle raised in the country is increasing. This is certainly not due to the Eastern farmer. Ninety-nine out of a hundred farmers keep nothing but dairy cattle, and the bull calves are sold to the butcher. There is good reason for this. In a country adapted to agriculture, such as the Eastern States, hogs and corn are much more profitable than cattle, and very few farmers are willing to devote much time and acres of good corn land to the raising of beef steers. Consequently, the nation's beef must be raised elsewhere.

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One of the last few herds of buffalo in the West.

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A street scene in White Oaks, New Mexico.

During the recent epidemic of hoof and mouth disease that swept over the Eastern States, thousands of cattle were killed; yet the price of beef did not materially increase, because fivesixths of the beef cattle are raised in the unaffected States west of the Missouri.

It is therefore clear that the Western cattle range has reached the limit of shrinkage, and is coming back to its own. The cowpuncher and the cattle ranch are no more passing than are the farmer and the cornfield, and for the same reason: both are national assets, and neither can take the place of the other.

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white man. Neither do they go on the war path in this day and age; but they are quite as copper-colored, wear as long hair, and speak the same language as their forefathers. There are more full-blooded Indians in the United States than there were twenty years ago-due mainly to the abolition of tribal wars and the stamping out of epidemics introduced by encroaching civilization. The "transition stage," that black night of despair for the Indians, has passed, and the "vanishing race" is increasing rapidly and thriving in the light of a new day.

In view of these facts, it appears somewhat foolish to mourn over "the passing of the Old West." For certain it is that the Old West still flourishes, so far as the character of the men and of the country in the main is concerned. Those changes which have been wrought have been merely superimposed, as it were, upon the old order.

Of course, many things are now done somewhat differently from what they once were: the modern cattleman brands with a stamp, and rides a saddle

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