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. Wether mutton, four and five years old, is sold when there is any demand for it; but except at Charpiot's, in Denver, I never saw mutton on any table, public or private, and wool is the great source of profit, the old ewes being allowed to die off. The best flocks yield an average of seven pounds. The shearing season, which begins in early June, lasts about six weeks. Shearers get six and a half cents a head for inferior sheep, and seven and a half cents for the better quality, and a good hand shears from sixty to eighty in a day. It is not likely that sheep-raising will attain anything of the prominence which cattle-raising is likely to assume.

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