There are no natural enclosures in ranch countries like hedges, though I see not why, in time, there should not be such. In vast plains, such as are found in Texas, I believe ranches are not fenced in at all, and the cattle wander where they will. But in countries like Colorado, where pretty well every acre has an owner, fences are a necessity. The usual one is a barbed wire-fence. This is thus constructed: at distances of 30 or 40 feet, sometimes more, strong poles, 3 feet in the ground, and say 5 feet above it, are set up. Three wires, the lowest say 18 inches from the ground, the second and third, a like distance from the first and second, run from pole to pole, and are attached thereto by iron cleets. This alone, however, would not suffice to keep cattle in the enclosures, for they often charge the fences in great numbers at a time, and would thus easily break through. But the wires are studded at every 18 inches with sharp spikes, which soon teach the cattle that they cannot run against them with impunity. This is why it is called a "barbed wire-fence," and it is a very efficacious one. On the ranch I had purchased (I called it the Water Ranch as it was exceptionally well watered with two streams running through it), the snow never lies long, not usually more than two or three days after a fall; thus it is only during these short intervals the cattle require to be fed, and in a measure sheltered. But this occurs again and again during the winter, and the food necessary has to be provided and grown during the summer months in the shape of Alfalfa (a peculiar and productive American grass), hay, turnips, and rye. Besides, as all the food the ranch workers require has to be produced at home, there is thus plenty to do in the kitchen-garden, in growing potatoes and other things. Then there is the poultry-yard. Geese, ducks, and fowls are bred in large numbers, and require much attention. Ranch-men naturally live well, for, besides meat and poultry, there is the produce of the dairy, which, in all its shapes--milk by the bucket, cream _ad libitum_, and butter in abundance--they can revel in. I never was better fed than on the Water Ranch. The dairy work is very profitable. Either the cream is sent away and sold to butter and cheese factories established for that purpose in ranch localities, or such are manufactured at home, and sent to the market-town for sale. But it will readily be conceived that milking thirty to forty cows, and the dairy-work in all its shapes, gives plenty of work.