LOUISIANA
BEEF
CATTLE
WILLIAM CARTER STUBBS, Ph.D.
Formerly Professor of Agriculture
Louisiana State University and Director of
State Experiment Stations
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
THE LOUISIANA COMPANY
NEW ORLEANS
FOREWORD
The following remarks relative to Louisiana Beef Cattle are profferedthe public to show the marvelous advantages possessed by the alluviallands of Louisiana, for the growing of cattle.
An intelligent use of these advantages will bring wealth to theindividual, the State and the Nation.
William Carter Stubbs, Ph.D.
LOUISIANA BEEF CATTLE
THE wealth-producing possibilities of cattle-raising are written intothe history, literature and art of every race; and with everynationality riches have always been counted in cattle and corn.
We find cattle mentioned in the earliest known records of the Hebrews,Chaldeans and Hindus, and carved on the monuments of Egypt, thousands ofyears before the Christian era.
Among the primitive peoples wealth was, and still is, measured by thesize of the cattle herds, whether it be the reindeer of the frigidNorth, the camel of the Great Sahara, or herds of whatsoever kind thatare found in every land and in every clime.
The earliest known money, in Ancient Greece, was the image of the oxstamped on metal; and the Latin word pecunia and our own English"pecuniary" are derived from pecus—cattle.
Although known to the Eastern Hemisphere since the dawn of history,cattle are not native to the Western Hemisphere, but were introducedinto America during the sixteenth century.
Cortez, Ponce de Leon, De Soto and the other conquistadores from OldMadrid, who sailed the seas in quest of gold, brought with them to theNew World the monarchs of the bull ring, and introduced the nationalsport of Spain into the colonies founded in Peru, Mexico, Florida andLouisiana.
[5]The long-horned, half-wild herds encountered by the pioneers, and by the"Forty-niners," who three centuries later trekked across the continentin quest of gold in California, were descendants of the bull pens ofMexico City, St. Augustine and New Orleans.
A different type of cattle was brought over to Jamestown, the firstEnglish colony, in the seventeenth century; these were strictlyutilitarian, designed for the triple service of enriching the larderwith dairy products, supplementing the abundant meat supply of buffalo,deer and other game and providing the ox as the draft animal.
The pioneers, striking out from the Atlantic seaboard, carried with themtheir