The profits on a ranch are derived by breeding cattle and horses, and selling the surplus stock, also from dairy work. Firstly, as to breeding cattle. The procedure is different in different parts. Climate principally regulates it. In Texas, a low latitude (33°), the winters are very mild, and the cattle there are never housed, they wander over the vast plains the year round. In Wyoming, and Montana and Dakota which join it, the cold in winter is intense, and the snow lies long. When the land is snow-bound, cattle, of course, can find no food for themselves, and during such time they have to be sheltered (scarcely housed) and fed. To do this costs money, and it goes without saying that in this respect the warm sites are the better. More, in the cold localities many cattle are lost in hard winters, simply frozen to death. But there is compensation as in most of the actions of nature. The cold localities have better grass in the summer. In latitudes like Texas there is no necessity to grow crops for winter food. In the cold localities much has to be done in this way. Colorado is between these two extremes, latitude about 38°, nearly the same as San Francisco. But it is far warmer in summer, much colder in winter, than that capital. This is in a great measure due to its being so far inland, and also to the fact that most of the state is high table-land. Thus in Colorado (the snow seldom lies there more than three or four days at a time) the cattle are only sheltered and fed for short periods. As a rule they calve in the spring. If it is required to increase the stock, only the male two and three years old and any worn out old cows are sold yearly. There is always a market for them; in fact, in spring and summer dealers travel round to the ranches and buy. If the above plan of keeping all the young female stock is followed out, and the mishaps are few, the cattle on a ranch double themselves in three or four years. When the limit a run will carry is attained, all the increase can yearly be sold. Great numbers of horses are bred on ranches, and it is a question whether these or cattle are the more profitable. Horses are hardier than cattle, stand both heat and cold better. They consequently require less shelter, and also less food in winter, for horses will paw up the snow and find food when cattle cannot do so. They "rustle" better for themselves, as the Americans forcibly express it.