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

GJ320S

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36 HISTORY OF CONSERVATION IN THE MISSOURI VALLEY

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Cheyenne Arapohoo Reservation, forced 200,000 cattle to move
and winter on overgrazed ranges at a loss of 85 % during the
winter of 1886 - 1887.

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Again the commercial production of barb wire enabled the
small claim holder and his dog to take the law into his own hands
and add to the many factors that spelt the collapse of the cattle
industry .

Another factor that destroyed the cattle boom was disease
or rather strife and confusion caused by the fear of disease. The
vast herds of Texas cattle as they came north were immune to
Texas fever, but they often carried the disease-bearing tick to
local cattle. Also the cattle imported from the East were often
infected with pleuro-pneumonia.

Confusion was written in capital letters as each local gov-
ernment made its special and different laws of inspection and
quarantine. The logical outcome, which came a little too late
to help the immediate emergency, was the extension of federal
power in the field of inspection. The law authorizing these fed~
eral activities was, to quote another, "bounded only by the boun-
dary of knowledge." This authority developed into scientific re-
search in many fields including conservation. Thus quietly came
about the greatest happenings in food production and land con-
servation.

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It was over-grazing that gradually destroyed the indus-
try although this hazard was never entirely overlooked. It was
a constant subject for discussion at cattle association meetings,
and the old files of country newspapers prove that the country
editor did his part. In the old records it can be found that as
early as 1866 a law was passed giving the county commissioners
of Deer Lodge, Montana, power to define what should be sum-
mer grass land in the county and prohibiting stock owners from
pasturing their stock on winter grass land ,unless they owned
the pasture. This law did not work and was repealed the next

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