THE LAST OF THE COWBOY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2738, 5 September 1906, Page 7

THE LAST OF THE COWBOY.

The United States correspondent of thai , Pastoralists' Review vraphically describes the '"passing out" of the cowboy: —

The end of the "round-up" and tho "range" has come. For 60 years the cowboy ha* ridden his "cow pony" over tho wide reaches cf the West, and felt thai he w»6 lord cf ail the land and sky between the* horizon and tho mountains. These last few years a new factor has appeared o» the range. The 'man with the hoe" camo into the life .of the cowboy. He showed a disposition to run lines across the virgin, prairie, and bin Id along them wire fence* ovir vhiefa no cow pony could be ridden. The -farmer was pot pugnacious, but he was full of tenacity. If hie wire fence* were out in the night he repaired them, and continued to plough, plant, and reap. If the cowboy became too insistent, th© farmer sometimes took the shot-gun ho kept for bird-hunting, and perforated the cowboy in an unpleasant manner, but be never gave up ploughing, planting, and reaping. Every year <ther farmers came, and every year the covboy saw his horizon, deliminatcd by wire fbnses instead of blu* sky, growing smaller and beautifully less. Now the end has come. The Miseousf River Stock growerb' Association has just held its annual meeting. Hetetoface these have been h<»l«l for the purpose of arranging the annual round-up, at which all the cattle on the range w-are gathered at stated points and branded, each owner branding the calves of his oows. The cost of theso round-ups was divided <among the members of the association, and after the branding was finished the cattle were again tuined on the range. This year the only business transacted vM the decision not to hold a round-up this year. Tbe new settlors have so closely occupied the territory to be worked N over, and have ao dotted it with gardens and crop fields, that to attempt to work the cattle, over the territory would mean a large, *mownh of damage and trouble; and as the homesteaders arc in far larger number than the cattle men, the roundf-up will be no more. Tie Butre country, further north, will be W4«rked for c year or two longer, but will soon cease, and the picturesque feature of etock-rarang on the range has ended so far as South Dakota is concerned. So ende the cowboy in the Missouri Va*. ley This picturesque individual, tirek&« 86 a, rider, unequalled as to the vigorous us© of h.ngua«ge, spendthrift as to money, careless as to danger, i.seful in his place

jbut tmbeautiful always, will no longer be required to sleep in his* saddle and fight for the rights of his master. No more hard riding on stormy plains. Farmers and fences everywhere, he will only have for his duties carrying salt to ponderous shorthorns, wiio -"ould not run a mile under any sort of a stimulus to action. The man with the hoe ras possessed the range for his own uses. He will raise crops and keep his_ eajtle in a field. The genus cowboy will soon Ht>eeome extinct. He cannot live in the bright light of civilisation. When it gets so that there 'is a man on every square mile the population is too tfcick for him. He was a creature c? unbounded reaches of scenery, and he trill follow the red man to oblivion and a place in history us one of the products of the conditions that obtained in the tieginning of things in our Great West.