B. Cattle and Sheep Types of Herders. (1 Nomads.—In spite of their importance commercially and in the advanc: meat of civilization, the dairy farmers are only a small percentage the people who depend upon domestic animals for a living. The other people may all be called herdsmen. They are divided into tw. o main groups, nomads and ranchers. The nomadic herdsmen some times keep cattle, as in many grassy parts of the African plateau, o yaks as in Tibet; more often they depend mainly on sheep as amon the Mongols and Khirghiz; others, such as the Arabs, rely largely upo camels; while some South American nomads depend on the llama All the nomads are alike in having regular routes which they follow a special seasons. In the dry season they gather near the larger wate supplies or in places where they can store a certain amount of hay in the wet season they move far out into the desert; in winter in t cooler regions they come down to the lowlands; while in summer the seek the green pastures high among the mountains near the snow line. All have tents which can easily be folded up and packed on horses, camels, oxen, yaks, llamas or even sheep. Naturally, their furniture , his of the simplest description, being chiefly bags, small boxes, rugs, and lquilts, with a small number of utensils of wood, leather, and iron. Con trary to the usual supposition they live largely on milk, butter, and cheese, and do not eat much meat. They cannot afford it for their surplus animals and wool are the only products which they can exchange for flour, cotton cloth, knives, guns, and the few other manufactured goods that they require. On the whole they contribute very little to the world's business, for they usually tan their own leather, manufacture their own woolen clothing, make their own leather bags for milk and cheese, and carve their own tent poles and wooden bowls. Each family generally works for itself and buys little from its neighbors and little except flour from outsiders.
It 2. herders of the second type live in permanent homes which are frequently called ranches. This fosters a higher civili zation than among the wandering nomads. Climate has much to do with determining whether herders shall be nomads or ranchers, but the stage of civilization has still more. In some places the climate is so dry that it is almost impossible for animals to find enough grass unless they are driven from one region to another, and there the nomadic habit per sists, as in Central Asia, Arabia, and the Sahara. In most dry regions, however, civilized man is able to devise means of pumping water, raising and storing forage, and traveling quickly so that he can live permanently in one place and yet provide his cattle with food and water at all seasons. The fast disappearing cowboy stage where the cattle wander widely but do not regularly migrate from season to season is intermediate between the truly nomadic and the rancher types of herding.
Ranchers, in the sense in which we are here using the word, raise sheep or cattle for meat, wool and hides, but not for milk. On many a ranch with thousands of cows condensed milk is the only kind obtain able. Ranches are found in small numbers in New England where abandoned farms are being restored by keeping beef cattle on them; they are found in larger numbers in certain rugged unglaciated parts of southeastern Ohio where the land is so rough that it pays better to keep sheep than to practice real farming; and they are most numerous in the semi-arid or arid regions west of the prairies as far as California.
Some are found in Hawaii, while they are also numerous in foreign countries, such as Australia with its hundred million sheep and Argen tina, where we have the unusual condition of many sheep still persisting in the general regions where vast numbers of cattle are raised.
Ranching in the United examination of the western United States reveals the geographical conditions which influence cattle and sheep ranches. West of the corn belt, that is from the 100th merid- I ian westward, the rainfall is so slight that dairying and all-around farming become precarious, and the production of beef cattle is an especially profitable industry. Cheap forage is there found in the broad' grasslands; not far away to the east corn for quick fattening can be raised; while farther cast beyond the slaughter houses in the corn belt lie cities of hungry people with well-filled pocketbooks. West of the cattle country, in the Rocky Mountains, lies the sheep country, more rugged and less fitted for farming than the cattle regions. It is not the optimum for sheep any more than the cattle region is the optimum for cattle, but each region is better adapted to its particular industry than to any other that has yet been developed.
The life on a cattle or sheep ranch is lonely. Only one man is needed to take care of a hundred cattle or a thousand sheep, whereas one is needed for every ten dairy cows. Since the rainfall is scarce each ani mal requires much more space than in a moister region. Hence, the ranches must be isolated. Much of the time the rancher must ride among his animals to see that they do not stray beyond the fences, that none are injured, that the young and the mothers are in good health, that the water supply is abundant and clean, and that the animals get enough food and do not eat plants that are poisonous.
During the summer he must raise hay, alfalfa, corn or other forage if his land is moist enough or is irrigated. At other times, especially in the autumn, he must pick out the animals that are ready for fattening, and drive them to the railroad for shipment to farmers farther east who have corn with which to fatten them.
The business relations of cattle and sheep ranchers are far more simple than those of dairymen. The ranchers must, to be sure, buy practically all their food from producers farther east or on the west coast. In fact in proportion to their numbers they are among the great est consumers of canned goods. As for manufactured goods they buy relatively few for, having little social life, they do not care much about dress; having relatively little cultivated land, they buy little machinery; and having a crop which moves to market on its own feet, they find automobiles less necessary than horses, which are kept at every ranch and ridden by everybody. The rancher's sales are even more simple than his purchases. Each ranch sells one or two main staples—live animals on the cattle ranch, and wool as well as live animals on the sheep ranch. The product is not sold daily as on a dairy farm, or at frequent intervals as on a truck farm, hut only a few times a year.