Ranching
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about ranching. For other meanings see Ranch (disambiguation).
Ranching is the raising of cattle or sheep on rangeland or ranch, although one might also speak of ranching with regard to less common livestock such as elk, bison or emu. The word applies in the western United States, in Canada, Latin America and South America. (Australian usage would refer to ranches as "stations"; New Zealanders use the term "runs".)
Historically, during a period on the Frontier in North America after the removal of the American bison and the Native Americans and before the coming of the homesteaders, ranching dominated economic activity. The public lands on the Great Plains consisted of "open range," where anyone could turn cattle loose for grazing. Barbed wire, invented in 1869, gradually made inroads in fencing off privately owned land, especially for homesteads but in addition caused suffering to many calves and cows trapped in it. Ranching became limited to lands of little use for arable farming. In Brazil, Native Americans (the Amerindians) were against cattle ranching. The race complained about their forest being burnt down, and their trees killed to set up farms. Their homes were destroyed and some died.
Deep Hollow Ranch, 110 miles east of New York City in Montauk, New York, claims to be the first ranch in the United States, having continuously operated since 1658.
Ranching forms part of the iconography of the Western in motion pictures.
[edit] Ranching companies
- The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo), Australia's largest pastoral company
- S Kidman & Co (Australia), owners of the world's largest cattle station (ranch).
- The Thomas Ranch- located in Cochise County, Tombstone, Bisbee, Arizona since 1902.
- 6666 Ranch - located in West Texas.
- King Ranch - one of the largest ranches in the world
[edit] Further reading
- Breaking Clean by Judy Blunt, Knopf: 2002, hardcover, ISBN 0-375-40131-8
- This Was Cattle Ranching: Yesterday and Today by Virginia Paul, Superior Publishing Company, Seattle, Washington, 1973
- Heart-Diamond by Kathy L. Greenwood, University of North Texas Press, 1989, hardback, ISBN 0-929398-08-4
- The Bell Ranch As I Knew It by George F. Ellis, The Lowell Press: 1973, hardcover, ISBN 0-913504-15-7
- Cattle Ranges of the Southwest, published 1898, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
