WSP00310

• File Number: 8407.500
• Description: Platte River Basin - River Basin General Publications - Missouri River
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Date: 1/1/1964
• Author: R E Hardie
• Title: History of Conservation in the Missouri Valley
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

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30 HISTORY OF CONSERVATION IN THE MISSOURI VALLEY

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Photographic teams of yolked oxen, twelve in a team, thirty
teams in a train, hauled supplies to army posts, mining camps
and railroad construction gangs. Cattle by the thousands were
trailed from the southern great plains to the Missouri Valley
where they were fattened and shipped by train and boat to
, the eastern markets,

If the cattle business was on the throne as king, the queen
was the long-horned Texas cow, Although small, nervous, and
of low beef value, she was tough, active and a superb calf
mother, fitting that era exactly as did the tepee and covered
wagon.

It would be of doubtful value to discuss the modern well-
known breeds of cattle and sheep that were imported and de-
veloped during this period. However cattle are the keystone
of soil building foundations, flanked on the right by grass, on
the left by legumes.

This trio is now doubly important in the rich eastern part
of our valley since the advent of hybrid corn. This overall im-
portance makes it obligatory that we consider the fundamental
source of stock. The longhorn was not the original wild cattle
but a special breed raised by the Spanish Moors on the arid
plains of southern Europe.

If you appreciate and admire the wonderful virtues of the
Arabian horse you will find them again in the Arabian tribes-
man. If you understand the difference in temperament and char-
acteristics between the French farmer and his neighbors in Hol-
land and Belgium you will find a facsimile in the difference in
the Percheron and Belgium draft horses. By the same token the
thoroughbred horse has all the fine qualities and also the faults
of the English gentry, and the long horned cattle acquired their
traits, scrawny, gregarious, and wildness from their scanty range
and bull fighting owners.

Research makes an optimistic report on the great grand

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