| Show BRANDS AND BRANDING Searing Suggestions by a Herald Correspondent To the Editor of TEE HERALD Now that the subject of branding cattle has been broached in your columns col-umns I would like to say a few I words on the subject The present system of keeping a record of brands is too unwieldy and uncertain to be much of a guard against the stealing of cattle by being driven off their natural range and then driven off altogether To remedy this I would propose a scheme that I believe would be at least much better than thepresent system In the first place each county should have a brand and one particular part of the animal should be reserved by law for this purpose and if necessary neces-sary the county may be divided off into districts with a figure added to the brand to indicate the number of the district Then some person should be empowered to register individual brands in each county and county brandingirons provided for the use of tae people This plan will relieve the public of a great deal of trouble in relation to stray stock as the owners can be at once f Juno out and notice sent them It will also do away with the necessity of branding on the best parts of the animals hides which is a great loss to hide dealers and others And still I would suggest that the brand recorder of each county be provided pro-vided with a private record corresponding correspond-ing with the numbers of each brand In the private record persons can use any device they choose to represent the number of their brand and when they write out a bill of sale of animals these privatemarks must be written after tl e signatures as Jon SMITH x72 which would represent say 321 Then any suspicious characters driving cattle hav ing some other county brand on than the one in which he lives could be invited in-vited by an officer to produce the bill of sale of such animals If the bills of sale were supposed to be forged the officer could soon find out by telegraphing or by having a copy of such private marks placed in his possession pos-session as it would be more than probable prob-able that such a spurious bill would not nave the proper private marks or letters attached As a brand on any animal can notbe conclusive evidence that the holderof such animal is the lawful owner then it should hi required by law that all transfers of animals should be accompanied ac-companied by bills of sale giving a general gen-eral description of said animals with the brands county and individualand persons not having such bills may be detained by officers of the law till they can produce clear records It seems to me that by a judicious arrangement of brands the best parts of the hide need not be damaged by brands and ear marks marks in the dewlap or other places on an animal can be used to help out the matter as there are hundreds of dollars wasted by the system now in use and it should stopped if possible Some proper or legal method of ven ting t-ing brands should be devised as the common modes are of no particular uss in hindering dishonest people appropriating appropri-ating animals not their own If some effective way could be suggested it would be worth while to give it a trial rJleit t Let those interested in the cattle business busi-ness give the matter a senous thought and give it to the people through THE HERALD The cattle business is assuming grand proportions in our mountain country and the temptation and chances to take what is not their own increase with the former In my own experience I have found a private stock record a very convenient arrangement often saving a great deal of trouble The time when dropped or of whom the animals are bought brands and marks color etc should be entered spots and marks not noticeable notice-able only on close inspection should also be a prominent feature in such a record of this kind Animals change to such an extent in the course of six or eight months that a person is often uncertain un-certain about the appearance of his animals and a record is needed to refer to occasionally Yours truly YACAEO |
