AUTUMN 2019 EQUUS 498 79
stressed and frequently become tough
to handle, whereas when they are
herded, roped and doctored by teams
of skillful cowhands working quietly
from horseback, necessary handling
not only goes faster but the cattle
remain gentle and weight loss due to
stress is minimized.
This article gives an overview
of big-acreage ranching in Texas,
in a poetic way refl ecting the fi ve
strands of the barbed-wire fences that
completely altered the North American
prairie biome. Going all the way back
to Colonial days when Mexico was
governed by the Spanish Crown, I
follow the checkered history of the
Pérez, Waggoner, 6666, Matador and
JA ranches---with mention of a few
more big ones including the Pitchfork
and Triangle (but leaving out the King
Ranch, whose unique history will be
covered in our next installment).THE PLOW THAT
BROKE THE PLAINS
Westward migration and settlement
in America was shaped by land, water,
climate and technology as much as by
settlers’ hunger for arable land. With
the Liberty Bell still ringing in their
ears, homesteaders pushed westward
after the Revolutionary War into the
ecological zone called the tallgrass
prairie. The fi rst arrivals sat in their
saddles and gazed outward with both
wonder and despair. They had ridden
through the Cumberland Gap and
followed the Buffalo Trace westward
to the Illinois country with hopes of
fi nding a better life, but the European-
style agriculture to which they were
heir regarded grassland as no better
than desert because it was nearly
impossible to plow.
Further, the prairie was home..
An illustration from a Harper’s
Weekly issue of 1859 shows
Mexican vaqueros at Mission
Espada in San Antonio. Their
mounts are tamed mustangs.
The horses carry heavy
leather chapas slung over
the saddle horns and the
riders wear wool chaps and
leather pants as well as using
tapaderos on the stirrups,
all to protect against thorny
brush and cactus spines.A cowhand and his partner “head and heel” one of the last authentic
longhorns on the JA, about 1911. Longhorns, descending from a strain
of Spanish cattle imported during the conquest of Mexico in the 16th
century, have come back into fashion for
a number of reasons including disease
resistance, ease of calving, soundness
and the lean quality of their meat. The
Schreiner family of the Y-O Ranch is
credited with saving the historic longhorn
from extinction and for establishing a
registry with modern record-keeping,
genetic testing and pedigreed bulls who
will carry the strain into the future.