The Lumber Barons Are Starving Themselves: Why Puget Sound Should Be Feeding Its Own Cows

GATTLE BREEDING. CONCERNING OUR FRIENDS WITH HORNS. PROFITS OF DAIRY AND SHAMBLES.

There is 'room at the top' of every vocation. This trite motto applies not merely to the law, theology or journalism, but to every pursuit in life by which men hope to amass an ample competency to enable them to live without labor in their twilight years. And while we concede that the unprogressive stock-breeder, who lives in a log hut and has no higher ambition than to make a ham living from the spontaneous increase of brute beasts, is but one degree removed from the Bedouins of Arabia, or the antas of the Russian steppes, we also claim that the intelligent and economical stock breeder is at all times entitled in our respect as A PUBLIC BENEFITOR.

The former of these is happiest when asleep and regards business as a curse inflicting the entire human race, while the other is happiest when attending to the wants of the dumb but patient creatures from whose increase he hopes to amass wealth. The great fame of the Thorntons, Alexanders Grigsbys and Pattersons, is by no means confined to the States of New York, Illinois, and Kentucky, where they made but a fraction since become a portion of the nation's pride and wealth. Nearly all these men began in a small way but worked their dairies and bred their herds, upon a progressive principle. Their motto was, pay cash for nothing; that will grow upon a farm and never buy a poor animal because his owner asks a low price for him. They also made it a rule never to hold for fancy prices but always to sell for a fair compensation.

Wealth therefore followed legitimately in the path of manly enterprise and power beget power. The late and ever-to-be-lamented Roman Almanacs ALEXANDER, of Woodford county, Kentucky, was a representative man of this class. By careful trading and judicious economy in stock breeding he had got together a few thousand dollars and was carrying on the business of a druggist when the death of a relative in Scotland made him the possessor of several millions.

But down about the Sound, the need is of small, hardy cattle, that will mature quickly and be of general service both for purposes of the dairy and the shambles. When you consider that our moist climate, so similar to the Channel Islands between England and France, gives us at least two months more of grass in each year than California enjoys, it must convince you that we possess A GOOD DAIRY COUNTRY.

If proper management is exercised. Tame the Swinomish flats for instance. We saw reclaimed land there from which two crops of timothy hay had been cut this season; yet there was fresh pasturage in the last week of October. Those flats will produce good sugar beets, two hundred bushels to the acre, if not more. Save the oat straw and chop it up with sugar beets for side-feeding. You will have fat cattle for sale in February and 'blue beef' will have become a thing of the past.

Look at the money which Puget Sound pays California for butter every year; it would purchase the ransom of a prince. We have been living here for twenty years, in daily defiance of every principle of political economy, exporting lumber and coal to pay for what we might as easily produce at home. A Devon cattle could be made a source of great profit in the Swinomish country, by laying the cows for the dairy and selling the steers for logging cattle.

But if you live in a section of country where the grass is sparse and mixed with fern and bramble, then try to JERSEYS OR GUERNSEYS. Those little fellows are small but they are the best dairy cattle in the world. Carefully kept accounts show that they produce the greatest amount of butter in proportion to the food consumed, of any breed extant. The cows are of a tawny yellow, while the bulls generally have brown muzzles. They are like deer, with their fine curly horns and tapering heads, while their bones are nearly as small as those of sheep.

They will feed all day on steep mountain sides, in places where Durhams would perish from exhaustion. No other cattle, save the Holsteins perhaps, 'lord such cheese' on the Alderneys. They cost more than common cattle, it is true, but they will soon return you a much larger income for your increased outlay.

And to families in towns, who prefer to keep their own cows, we say don't be without a Jersey. She will take no more room than an overgrown bull-dog and live on little or nothing, besides giving you such milk as you never can hope to buy out of a milkman's cart.

See that she has PLENTY OF SHELTER From the winter storms, and her bills for hay will not be very heavy assessments. All the trouble she can give you is in milking her and cleaning out her stall, so she has a dry place to sleep. You must use gentleness on all occasions and never beat her because she does not obey your imperious commands; for nature never sent dumb animals into this world to be kicked and abused.

And whether you milk one cow or a hundred, see that gentleness is never departed from, for even the most barbarous nations always treat their cattle well. Therefore it is your duty to treat Daisy and Spot with that kindness which is the result of civilization, and remember that 'a good man is merciful to his beasts.'