HORSES NOBODY WANTS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 7 March 1925, Page 13

HORSES NOBODY WANTS.

THOUSANDS RUNNING WILD. IN HILL STATES OF AMERICA Anybody who wants a horse—of sons for the trouble of catching him, can get any reasonable number, up to several thousand, in any one of several Western States of U.S.A.; and may not only remove his catch "free of charge, but claim a bounty of five dollars or so apiece for killing them or taking them away. The wild horse, in short,- lias become as great a nuisance as the-rabbit in this country. He hard to catch, almost impossible to •tame, and so* under-sized and scrubby as .to be worth-little when you get him. And yet the ancestors of these great herds of useless wild creatures were all domesticated horses brought from Europe, so Will C. Baines us in an article about them in American Forests (Washington). The first Europeans wim landed here found no horses, Mr. Barnes tells us. When Cortez reached Mexico, the first of his- cargo to be’ landed were sixteen head of horses, the very first, as we know them to-day, that ever trod the North. American continent. Other shipments followed. We read :

Not- only is it probable that many more hor.sens were later shipped to the New World, but those, tlia-t did reach it must have bred and imiltinlied yrith unusual rapidity, for when OaptainGeneral Coronado left the west coast, of Mexico, in 1540, and moved to the north-east, he took with him about 300 Forte si asi mounts, together with 1000 spare horses and pack-mules. This was a little over 21 year® after the first horses to reach this continent were unloaded. These Spaniards rode mares, stallions, and gelduigi, for Uiey were colonisers as well as explorers, and breeding stock was a. prime .necessity. They brought their animals from Spain, of course, and it is doubtful if their horses were other than the somewhat common stock with . which the Spaniards were satisfied. The Spaniards, were constantly losing horses, the animals when turned out at night to gra-ze either becoming entangled in the immense herds of buffalo, or else, because of hard use, were worn, out or sick and had to- he left behind. There seems to be up question but- that the wild horses of the Western plains were “escapes” from the mounts of these early Spanish. “Conquistadores.” Captain Zebulon, Pike, who in 180(5 marched up the Arkansas River, across ,what is now Oklahoma. Kansas, and Colorado, mentions in his diary the great herds of wild horses he found everywhere on the open prairies. Earlier travellers and explorers also reported them in other parts of the region a-s plentiful in numbers on the ranges a® were the buffalo and deer. TCv-enkuallv “musit:a.n,o;iiig,” next to buffalo-hunting, became one of the mo-sit fascinating adventures in the West. It was from these wild horse bands, of course, that the Western Indians obtained their first horses—an accession which furnished them with; a means of rapid movement from one region to another and turned them from footmen to horsemen-. The wild horse undoubtedly caused a-s tremendous n change in their whole mode of 1 if<\ as did the invention of the steam locomotive in that of the present civilisation.

The Far West, however, was not the only part of this continent where wild horses were to be found in the early years. They ran at large in' great numbers in the forests of Virginia, “escapes’’ from the stock of the colonists. These animals increased very rapidly. They ranged the year round in the .forests, and thus became’"quite as wild as their Far Western, relatives. To quote further: In the early ’7o’s, when, the pioneer stockman' began to push out into the plains region, many of them began the raising of well-bred horses along: with their cattle. They shared the ranges with the mustangs, and naturally many of the tame horses joined wild bands and were lost. With the development- of railroads and the growth of trolleys the demand for light- horses fell off so fast that by 1899 range horses were a drug on the market. The owners would .not go to the expense of rounding up, and for want of handling the animals became wilder than the wildest deer. They increased rapidly ami . became a burden, oil the ranges, already heavily overstocked with cattle and sheep. Tn 1898 several cars of selected geldings from northern Arizona, all good colours and halter-broke, netted the writer but twenty-five cents each on the Kansas City liorse. market.. And even in .1923 several carloads of horses averaging IKK) pounds, shipped from South Dakota, points, netted the shippers but tw.o dollars each,.- The Boer War, which began in 1599, was. a boon to the owners and hunters of these worthless wild horses. Agents- of that Government shipped out many thousand® of them,, at from two to five dollars a head. Three out of every four l horses died on the voyage out-. These shipments took many thousands of horses from the ranges, but the remainder became wilder -and harder than ever to round up. . Capturing wild horses requires great perseverance, intrepid riding, a love of adventure, and an absolute disregard for horse flesh. For every ten horses captured and broken, two. or three first-class saddle horses are generally either killed, run. to death, or badly used up. Chasing wild horses lias always been an enticing game—one which, few .range stockmen can resist. In every range State to-day these bands of wild and practically worthless horses are not only a- pest, but a heavy economic loss, in that they consume feed needed for more valuable range animals. They attract broken 'horses, which immediately feel the call of the wild, join, the band, and become a.s. wild as the rest. In .some regions it is unsafe to turn. a. broken horse out on the range to graze, lest he be picked up by these outlaws. ’ A favourite method of capturing, wild horses, we are told, is to build a. small O')rral around some water-hole in the c-edai brakes, where the animals waterat night. The gates are' built in halves and open inward, being hung so- that they drop back into place a« the animal shoves through. By leaving the “tra-n gate” open for some time, until the horses become accustomed t.o the inclosure, it is often possible to catch a, number of them. But one can do but little with, them when caught. Mr: Barnes continues: Several years ago there were from ten to fifteen thousand wild horse's on the Modoc National -Forest, in northeastern California-. When water was to be found, they remained in the famous “Lava Beds.” When water was scarce the horses worked back into the mountains, where they were safe from cature. . On the Yakima- Indian Reservation, in Washington, in 1922 the number of useless wild horses wae estimated by the Indians to be ‘ above 15,000. In spite of the fact that every hla-de of grass was needed for valuable live stock, the Indians, will neither kill a wild horse nor allow others to do it for them. On the Crow Indian Reservation, in Montana, there are thousands of horses, some wild and some fairly tame, but -all utterly valueless. The ‘ cattlemen have for several years past had a standing offer of five dollars for each, horse the Indians would bring

in. The Indian attitude towards a horse and. his dogs, no matter how*useless could not be changed.. The gual-. ity of nearly all these wild horses must not be overlooked. They are generally small, inbred, undersized individuals, - seldom weighing more than 700 or SOO poundshard to break when captured, and of little or no use when tamed. The stories of the coal-black stallion with streaming inane, long, sweeping tail, flashing eyes, and the speed of the ' wind, are figments of the imagination. Catch the leader of a hand and' he turns out to be a scrub not worth-the cost of breaking. With every man’s hand against them, those wild horses will eventually be exterminated. In the meantime any red-blooded man tliirstfor adventure, excitement, and some Wild West riding can get plenty of it ' chasing these unwelcome residents of the Western ranges. There is no closed season on them at any time in the whole year, for they arc classed with > the wolves and coyotes, as predatory animals marked, for slaughter.