Show randina q iron passes NS ussr nl n A A I 1 Y tv it 0 7 affel P J 14 A 47 Z 1 I 1 H E TEXAS st C jt 0 i sa s1 K wr W r 04 yi dytri vav A A A W 4 S W I 1 YAM 4 rj kev W I 1 r aki I 1 i R ils asje Y pp ap fit ff ftfe ask y i A ayt Z r t a M mt ac 14 sa layaw l ay aw C oo 00 o o or o r 0 y Y IV 16 I 1 t fa 4 ta 0 9 4 W M J a ile 7 of 4 h I 1 a m L I 1 aa ay t M 0 FA rf ar 77 r f 0 0 OZ 41 IOU suy 44 46 tp y I 1 V s B A 0 X L hl n te it r n to T 19 HOT IRON A group of brands brand which illustrate the multiplicity of symbols used on the cattle range ran es of the th west they are the following 1 bible or book 2 church 3 cross 4 maltese cross S 5 swastika 6 square and compass 7 1 I 0 0 F emblem 8 question 9 dollar mark 10 etc 11 house 12 rocking chair 13 jug 14 pitcher I 1 15 I 1 boot 16 dumbbells dumb bells 17 door key 18 frying pan 19 crutch 20 wineglass 21 kite 22 hat 23 f necktie 24 bell 25 dagger 26 horseshoe 17 27 bow and arrow 28 anchor 29 flower pot 90 0 umbrella 31 tree 32 hog eye 33 pigpen 94 4 barbecue 35 kite 36 fishhook 37 fish 38 8 snake 39 turtle 40 rabbit 41 rising sun 42 moon 43 star 44 two hearts 45 liver 46 goose egg 47 pitchfork 48 rake 49 stepladder 50 currycomb 51 bridle bit 52 spur 53 paddle 54 anvil 55 plow 56 tomahawk 57 hanhook hay hook 58 ace of clubs 59 four sixes 60 ten of diamonds 61 ace of diamonds 62 diamond deuce 63 diamond trey 64 diamond five 65 I 1 owe you 66 seven up 67 lazy T 68 tumbling T 69 flying V 70 rocking H 71 swinging H 72 mashed 0 73 bar X L 74 H rake four by ELMO SCOTT WATSON NOTHER institution of the old west j seems to be on its way into oblivion y at least that Is the logical interprets tation of a recent news dispatch from texas which said VIL I 1 I 1 A few years more and there will be no plaintive bawling as a sizzling red hot iron Is pressed against a young steers hide bide instead there will be a cold iron dipped into a chemical and aepli applied ed to the yearling A few days after this application the chemical without pain to the animal will have eaten away the hair turned the red skin to white and produced permanently the owners owner I 1 9 mark this new method introduced by a doctor in amarillo texas has been tried successfully sf ully it if this method proves successful and Is generally adopted it will not only mark the passing of an instrument which along with the rifle the tic axe and the prairie plow were symbols of various arlous phases in american pioneer life but it will also satisfy the main objections to a custom which was wag very necessary to the development of the cattle industry to the proportions which it attained during the three decades after the civil war one of those objections was an economic one the tact fact that the deep burn inflicted by the branding iron damaged the bide of the steer and decreased the value of this byproduct by product of the cattle business this objection was largely done away with when it was learned that all eastern buyers classed all western hides as branded stuff even if they were not and made a certain reduction in their value so the new branding method way may lead to a revaluation of hides from western cattle since the chemical will not damage the hide bide as the red hot iron did the necessity for cattle branding in the united states goes back to the days of free grass and open range when the brand was an abs absolute blute necessity in order that owners might identify their property in the annual roundups round ups with the coming of fenced range this necessity was largely obviated but the brand still served to place guilt upon cattle thieves and made it possible to stamp out cattle rustling then followed a period when cattle branding fell somewhat into disuse but recent years have seen a revival of cattle rustling and the motorized cattle thief who uses use a truck in which to carry away three to ten prime beet beef steers began cutting into the western meager profits only a short time ago the board of brand inspectors of one western state declared that a return to the branding of live stock was the omy solution of the new or rather the revived menace to their business indications are that similar action will be taken in other states and it if the texas doctors method of marking with chemicals proves feasible the ranges and shipping pens of the west may be filled once more with branded cattle branded by a modern scientific method and branded because modern mechanical methods of rustling hare bare made it necessary in the early days of the cattle industry branding br and wax was haphazard there was much duplication of brands and consequently frequent quarrels over ownership texas the fountainhead of the cattle industry was the first state to regulate branding and other states soon boon followed suit until most of them have very definite branding laws inese differ in some respects but the underlying prin cyples are the same the main one being required registration of brands some allow a certain brand to a rancher and he may put it on any place on the animal others permit different rien to have the same brand but the different owners w asi e r s must m place it on their stock in distinctive P positions t 1 0 n S according to the laws ot of north dakota each brand was good for ten positions they were the jaw neck shoulder ribs and hip bil five alve positions on each side aide of the animal it ans not uncommon for a north dakota stockman to buy all positions so that he could brand his stock as he be pleased otherwise nine other men could use the same brand la in other positions thus causing endless confusion the number and variety of brands in the cattle cattie country la is almost inconceivable for instance a total of more than brands have been recorded in montana since 1878 and it Is said that were in active use within rece recent nt years records of the texas cattle raisers Kai sers association showed more than registered brands in use in that state a few years ago and in colorado there were more than rut cut despite this multiplicity of markings the old time cattleman and the brand inspectors stationed at the stockyards stock yards in the leading cattle markets could read the various brands and interpret thern them as easily as a stenographer can read and interpret the pothooks pot hooks and other symbols inthe shorthand system more than that they spoke a language a phonetic tongue albeit which was all but unintelligible to the uninitiated philip ashton rollins in his classic of western life the cowboy writes of this as follows ile he would know that 4 as 28 meant four bar twenty eight since a hyphen always was called a bar that because a capital letter of size was commonly termed big the brand AT was translatable into big bic A two that because a letter or figure lying on its side was termed lazy a prone letter m underscored w as the lazy il 11 bar this person would know also that because a ring was dubbed a circle a letter go g enclosed within a ring was the circle G that because a circles are arc was according to its length designated as a quarter half hair or three quarter circle a scant bit of curve followed by a letter r e was the quarter circle R and that because anything looking like a diamond or even its cousin was called diamond a figure W 5 within a lozenge should be interpreted as diamond five this person would know also that any parallelogram regardless of the ration between its length and height was a block or box or a square whichever its owner cared to term it that the faintest resemblance to a pair of wings gave the prefix flying so that the numeral 9 between two misshapen bulges was the flying nine and that other designs were attempted pictures and should be entitled broken pipe sombrero spur bit elk horn two star wheel and whatever finally this person would know that still further designs had arbitrary slangy designations such as wallop a wide letter U atop another letter U equally wide but inverted a group of interlocking wings with no flying central design and hog pen two parallel lines crossing two other parallel lines at a right angle in the record of brands every letter of the alphabet Is represented and most letters are found in three or four positions an exception Is 0 0 which has but one shape in any position and therefore can be used only once true there Is the 0 flattened at the sides but it is called a mashed 0 a link or goose egg N is another letter that Is not susceptible of many positions tor for horizontally it Is Z 1 I Is another letter with a limited use it Is seldom seen except la in combination with other characters and Is usually called a bar 0 and TV are examples of letters that are used tn in four positions for example an ordinary K makes one position turn it to an angle of 45 degrees and you have the tumbling K on its back horizontally the lazy K and reversed a fourth position there are lazy and tumbling brands in all letters except 0 and 1 I after the letters of the alphabet and the variations thereon were all taken up it became necessary to devise individual and unique brands so every conceivable device made its appearance ranging from bible references through poker hands to farm implements household utensils and lodge insignia in the colorado brand book may be found a skull and crossbones a rake shovel shoe boot cup coffeepot coffee pot glasses flag bag keys apple star moon ladder tree anchor pitchfork glove muleshoe mule shoe rocking chair hatchet axe spear rolling pin gate spectacles pipe lish fish gun compass umbrella hands and dozens of other queer characters tor for which it Is 18 difficult to find an adequately descriptive name in the illustrations at the head of this article ts is included a chart of 74 out ot of the ordinary brands so go important was the branding iron to the cattle industry that a few years ago the state whose prosperity was built upon the cattle bund bul I 1 14 t I 1 01 I 1 S A maverick ness hit upon the unique idea of branding a new half dollar classroom building at its state university with the symbols of its greatest industry accordingly garrison hall ball at the val hersity of 0 texas now bears on its walls 32 cattle brands which helped make texas history As a preliminary to this thia idea E IV winkler university librarian arlan examined more than cattle brands which were used nt at one time or another in that state and from this number selected the 32 which were to be engraved on the white stone walls of the new classroom building as ai representative ot of some step in the progress of texas history there Is a good story connected with every one of them but outstanding among them are the austin spanish brand of stephen F au aa tin the father of texas the four sixes of S B burnett which resulted from his winning a large ranch in a poker game in which he be held four of a kind bind the D brand of A H shanghai pierce who drove cattle from matagora county on the gulf and whose steers were known from the rio grande to the canadian line as shanghai pierces Pl rl erces sea lions the XIT brand generally known as ten in texas of the cap capitol land syndicate whose holdings covered ten counties and included three million acres given tn in payment for the state capitol building at austin the lazy S of C C slaughter which adorned more than cattle a year in tile the trall trail driving period after the civil war the JA brand of charles goodnight owner of the famous goodnight ranch home of the goodnight herd of buffalo and experimenter in crossing cattle and buffalo to produce the catalo and last but not least the UK MK brand of S A maverick the cattleman who paradoxically became famous not because of a brand but because of lack of one and whose name became a common noun in the american language for maverick Is a word found in all dictionaries defined by the eminent diction alre webster as an unbranded animal esp a motherless calf formerly customarily claimed by the first one branding it and mave Is a recognized legal term for illegal appropriation of unbranded cattle samuel A maverick a graduate of yale college in the class of 1 was one of the founders of texas independence and a member of the congress of the republic of texas in ILL 1845 the exact details of how his name came to be perpetuated in a common western word are somewhat disputed one account states that a neighbor who owed maverick a debt of paid it off by giving him 1 1200 1 head of longhorn cattle whereupon maverick turned them over to a family of negro slaves with the understanding they have the natural increase of the herd but these negroes were a shiftless set and allowed the cattle that thus came to them to roam at will in the long grass along matagorda b bay ay in a few years there were hundreds of these unbranded cattle and people often asked whose cattle are these to which the usual reply was wag mavericks As time went on the term mavericks came to be applied to all unbranded cattle they were not samuel A mavericks cattle tle they were just mavericks nob odys cattle another account says that during the civil war nearly all of colonel mavericks employees employee entered the confederate army so that his cattle tle ran wild and remained unbranded so they were mavericks cattle until some one else clapped his brand on them to make them his own and gradually all stray cattle became mavericks whatever the true story may have been the fact remains that among all cattlemen who might be famous because thousands of cattle bore their brands the most enduring fame cam to one whose cattle went un unbranded brandeL 0 by western newspaper union |