"The soil of the plains is very much the same every-where. To a casual observer it looks sterile and unpromising, but, when turned by the plow or spade, is found very fertile. Near the mountains it is filled with coarse rock particles, and under the action of the elements these become disproportionately prominent on the surface. Receding from the mountains, it becomes gradually finer, until gravel and bits of broken stone are no longer seen. Being made up from the wash and wearing away of the mountains, alkaline earths enter largely into its composition, supplying inexhaustible quantities of those properties which the eastern farmer can secure only by the application of plaster, lime, and like manures. These make the rich, nutritious grasses upon which cattle thrive so remarkably, and to the constant wonder of new-comers, who can not reconcile the idea of such comparatively bare and barren-looking plains with the fat cattle that roam over them. "Besides the plains, there is a vast extent of pasture-lands in the mountains. Wherever there is soil enough to support vegetation, grass is found in abundance, to a line far above the limit of timber growth, and almost to the crest of the snowy range. These high pastures, however, are suitable only for summer and autumn range; but in portions of the great parks and large valleys, most parts of which lie below eight thousand feet altitude above the sea, cattle, horses, and sheep live and thrive the year round. The cost of raising a steer to the age of five years, when he is at a prime age for market, is believed to be about seven dollars and a half, or one dollar and a half per year. A number of estimates given us by stock men, running through several years, place the average at about that figure. That contemplates a herd of four hundred or more. Smaller lots of cattle will generally cost relatively more. The items of expense are herding, branding, and salt--nothing for feed." THE CATTLE-HIVE OF NORTH AMERICA. In this connection we may very properly quote from the same writer the following paragraph in regard to the source from whence all the cattle are now brought--that great natural breeding ground, the prairie land of Texas. "Texas is truly the cattle-hive of North America. While New York, with her 4,000,000 inhabitants, and her settlements two and a half centuries old, has 748,000 oxen and stock cattle; while Pennsylvania, with more than 3,000,000 people, has 721,000 cattle; while Ohio, with 3,000,000 people, has 749,000 cattle; while Illinois, with 2,800,000 people, has 867,000 cattle; and while Iowa, with 1,200,000 people, has 686,000 cattle; Texas, forty years of age, and with her 500,000 people, had 2,000,000 head of oxen and other cattle, exclusive of cows, in 1867, as shown by the returns of the county assessors.