Louis Couty

“ Nothing, moreover, can be more curious than to study the habits of these supposed wild cattle, to see them living in isolated societies, possessing real notions of what is belonging to them, and each member of the community keeping his place. These facts are of further importance, because they have served for the empirical basis of the actual conditions, as they will have to serve as the basis of an improved system of breeding. In all these countries the life of the cattle is wholly free. ”

“ These facts are very remarkable, for they show that reproduction is not regulated directly by the climate or the season, but indirectly, through the condition of the pasturage. The further development of the young animal is also affected by the same condition. The Parana calf, born during the dry season, is badly nourished at first, but finding the pastures rich just when it has grown large enough to graze, and beginning at the same time to receive an abundance of milk from its mother, it takes on a rapid development, and soon becomes strong enough to endure the coming dry season. ”

“ The assemblage may take place near the buildings in an estancia of moderate size, often in an inclosed space of suitable capacity called the mangueira. In extensive estancias having numerous herds, as it would be almost impossible to collect ten or twenty thousand head at a single point, several rodeos are made in different parts of the campo, always at the same points. In other estancias, notably in Parana, one or two grand rodeos a year are made at the mangueira, and several smaller rodeos at less intervals. The task of driving the cattle up to the rodeo is not a hard one. ”

“ The stock-raiser, or estancier, is the owner of a very extensive tract of pasture-land, and he leaves the animals to live upon it, feed themselves, and multiply at their will. The stock, even in the wildest and least populous regions, form small herds of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty head, which are made up of steers, cows, calves, and bulls; but are always composed of the same individuals, and always inhabit the same very limited region of the campo, and the animals pass their lives within this region without being confined by any inclosure. ”

“ The cattle in these herds also propagate in freedom. Traveling in Parana at a time when the pasturage was excellent and the cattle were in good condition, in January, I saw numerous vigorous bulls living as peacefully as could be with the cows.
The care given by man to the cattle enjoying this freedom of life and procreation, although very restricted, is greater than has been represented. A rodeo, or gathering of the different herds at a single point, is held at determined periods, both in Parana and the Oriental Republic. ”

“ The animals grow quite slowly in Parana, and are hardly ready to send to market till they are four or six years old, and are well developed and shapely; in the southern districts they are as a whole smaller, but are more rapidly developed, and are sold when only three or four years, or even less than three years, old. Then, while in Europe, nearly every cow is expected to give a calf each year, in Rio Grande and Montevideo the number of calves is only eighty per cent., in Parana only fifty per cent, that of the cow. ”

“ CATTLE-RAISING is far from having attained a sufficient importance in Brazil. Immense provinces, like those of Goyaz and Matto-Grosso, vast regions from the Amazon to the Parana, where cattle could be raised easily and without care, remain unutilized for want of a market and of convenient means of transport and conservation. There exist, however, some important stock-raising tracts and cattle-exchanges. ”

“ Each herd is so coherent that, when one of its members takes fright and runs away, all will follow it. In consequence of this habit, it is very difficult, when cattle are sold, to separate them from the herds and to get them along for the first few leagues. If they are not watched, they will escape, pass by thousands of other animals without noticing them, and join their companions again. ”

“ The distinctive character of the groups is especially curious in the more populous regions, as the southern part of Rio Grande or Montevideo, where herds may be seen almost in contact without mixing, coming together and making themselves up generally without trouble; and they live thus side by side for years without becoming acquainted with each other. ”

“ Although backward in respect to selection, the intervention of man has brought about an improvement in a no less important point of view, in the shape of measures to secure a more regular supply of food. ”

“ Now, all the half-wild cattle—bravos, as they call them—have an extreme fear of man; it is dangerous to approach them on foot. They are prone to abandon their calves, and give them insufficient food. On the other hand, the cattle in small herds, or manses, breed much better and more rapidly. In Parana, many estanciers have, besides the droves of bravo cattle, four or five hundred head of manse cattle, which are kept to be milked ”

“ Nothing can be more surprising than to observe the differences in the aspect and in the productiveness of the two classes, whose conditions differ only in their having a greater or less familiarity with man. Ultimately, when these regions shall have become more populous and divided into smaller estates, the manse cattle will predominate, and systematic breeding will take the place of the present free-range practice ”

“ There is probably not one in Parana, where, if you suggest it, the breeder will answer that an excess of water will promote the growth of worthless plants. The condition of the cattle might be improved, and the return from them increased, by dividing the enormous droves, which may now count from four to thirty thousand head, into herds of from five hundred to a thousand head. ”

“ There are other differences, mostly relating to matters of detail, which have not yet been sufficiently studied to make their bearing well understood, but all of which appear to illustrate the fact that the life of the stock, its increase, and its development, depend on the complex relations of certain physical conditions, such as the temperature, the time and amount of rains, the character of the soil, the presence or absence of wood, all of which act through their influence upon the supply of pasturage and food. ”

“ It is also surprising that hardly anything has been done, in a region where everything is so favorable, to improve from themselves the races which have already become adapted to the medium and been molded by it. Cross-breeding, although it is highly esteemed, has been tried only in a limited number of estancias, and the selection of the best native stock has not been seriously attempted on any of the estates that I have observed. ”

“ A careful study of the media in which the cattle live and by which their development is governed and their habits are regulated, the points of difference between them, and the varying effects they produce in the animals exposed to their influence, might result in adding another page to what has been written on progressive evolution and adaptation.—Translated from Revue Scientifique. ”

“ The pasture-lands are diversified with woods which are wanting in the more southern districts, and these give the animals shelter when they need it, and furnish them with a certain amount of browse, though it be of inferior quality, when the grass fails. ”

“ The beasts stagger along, and go in a mass toward the habitual point of gathering, generally with the bulls at their head The assemblies are kept up for a greater or less length of time, and the peons circulate around the herd, shouting as to accustom the animals to the presence of man, and to the custom of coming up. ”

“ This season carries off all the weaker animals, especially those that are calved at a later than the normal time, and has in this manner contributed to the perfection and perpetuation of the characteristics of the breed. ”

“ The natural physical conditions under the operation of which the production of cattle must be maintained and promoted in these regions, are liable to considerable variation, even within the limited territory which I have visited. ”

“ The intervention of man is also illustrated in the efforts at cross-breeding. I was surprised at the manner in which this is attempted in South America. Everybody wants to acclimatize the races of Europe, and to improve the meat and fattening qualities of the stock ”

“ These means, however, do not create new food, but only utilize that which already exists, and are of no use when a reserve of food is most necessary—that is, after frosty weather, and at the end of long droughts. ”