CATTLE RAISING IN BOLIVIA.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12490, 17 March 1909, Page 4

CATTLE RAISING IN BOLIVIA.

Very little expense is incurred in the rearing of cattle in Bolivia, and little trouble is taken beyond the retention of a few Indian herdsmen, who are mounted on sturdy horses, bred on the same hillsides! Those mon are paid from £1 to £1 10s per month. "If," writes an authority, "scientific principles were applied to this industry, the region would easily maintain hundreds of thousands of cattle, and with a better breed of animals they .would be able to produce sufficient butter to supply the whole republic. But the owners are, . as a rule, very indolent, and they do not seem to aspire to make more money than is required to keep them. Many of the ranchmen, in cases of need, sell off bulls and cows indiscriminately for slaughter, some of the cows being even killed in pregnancy. Yet it is stated that this is an industry which yields as much as 50 per cent profit with adequate "care "and attention. Pigs form another lucrative branch of industry, as the sows produce, according to report, litters of sixteen every year. They are also fed in the woods, on land which costs next to nothing, and only during the last two or three weeks are they fattened on'maize. Horses and mules can also be bred, especially when they have to feed on the hillsides, where they grow to a very good size, aiid acquire great strength and firmness in their legs."- " .